Impact of repairability marketing on consumer behaviour and attitudes in electronics

Abstract

Consumer electronics industry is starting to pay more attention to repairability as a beneficial feature, but it is still unclear how much it actually means to consumers. This thesis investigates how marketing repairability, through packaging and visual cues, influences consumer decision-making and behaviour in the context of small electronic devices. A survey experiment was conducted with three groups who each saw variations product images: one with no repair messaging, one with repair messaging, and one that saw both. Participants who saw the repairable version of the product were more likely to say the information helped them understand its long-term use and this difference was statistically significant. While trust scores were slightly higher in those groups as well, the gap wasn’t large enough to be meaningful. Prior experience with repairing electronics did not seem to influence trust or perceived value, which was somewhat surprising. Instead, what really mattered was attitude: people who felt positive about the idea of self-repair were much more likely to consider buying a repairable product. In fact, that attitude alone explained 43% of the variation in purchase intent, making it one of the strongest predictors in the study. Repairability messaging seems to help with how useful a product feels, and self-repair values play a big role in whether people are open to buying repair-friendly devices. These insights could help brands to push repairability in a way that actually connects with consumers.

Date of Award	2 Jul 2025
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Daniel Fernandes (Supervisor)