After about a year of research, we’re excited to share the first insights from the NWO KIC project Tackling Fixophobia – insights that help us understand how to make repair easier, more accepted, and widely adopted.

Tackling Fixophobia is structured into six work packages (WPs), each led by a dedicated team exploring a different angle of the same challenge. Together, the WPs create a comprehensive picture of how we can overcome barriers to repair. In this article, we share what we have learned so far about the factors influencing repair behavior and how repair practices for consumer electronics can be encouraged.

Work Package 1: Marketing and service innovations to motivate trust, acceptance, and adoption of repair

By Ilona de Hooge & Eleni Evangelatou (Wageningen University & Research)

How do device problems shape whether people consider repair? In WP1, we explore exactly that, looking at which problems push consumers toward repair and which are tolerated. The insights so far:

Technical problems drive perceived utility decline

Our study of 381 Dutch consumers identified smartphones, laptops, desktop computers, washing machines, printers, coffee makers, and vacuum cleaners as the most problematic devices.

Technical problems such as battery deterioration, slow performance, or system crashes are the most common and severe, having the strongest independent impact on how useful people perceive their device to be (perceived utility).

Physical problems (like cracked screens or broken ports) and market/technological problems (e.g. device feels outdated, software no longer supported) also reduce perceived utility, particularly for products with rapid innovation cycles like smartphones and laptops.

Problems have temporal properties influencing a personal acceptance threshold

Problems can appear suddenly, gradually, repeatedly, or in cascading ways. Consumers tolerate issues until frustration peaks and the device becomes “broken but unusable.” This threshold varies by device and problem type.

Brokenness perception drives repair consideration and action

As problems accumulate toward the personal threshold, consumers increasingly perceive their device as “broken.” This perception predicts whether the consumer considers and attempts repair: the more broken a device is perceived, the more likely consumers are to consider and attempt repair.

In essence, whether consumers consider repair is influenced not just by the type of device problem, but also by how it develops over time. Key to this are perceived utility assessments and the brokenness perception: technical problems such as battery deterioration, slow performance, or system crashes have the strongest impact on how useful people perceive their devices to be. Physical damage (e.g., cracked screens) and market or technological issues (e.g., outdated software) also reduce perceived utility, making consumers more likely to consider repair. Understanding these patterns helps us design marketing and service innovations that build trust, encourage repair consideration, and support adoption.

Work Package 2: Technology-enabled design interventions to motivate trust, acceptance and adoption of repair

By Ruth Mugge & Yichen Jin (TU Delft)

How can Augmented Reality (AR), the Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) help consumers repair their electronic products?

Technologies can empower consumers in two ways: directly, by providing features they can actively interact with – such as repair instructions or guidance – and indirectly, by improving the overall repair system from which consumers could benefit.

To understand the specific role of each technology, we view repair as a journey rather than a single action. This journey consists of multiple stages:

• Repair interest – Consumers notice a mismatch between product performance and expectations.
• Repair pathfinding – Finding information and guidance for repair.
• Repair arrangement – Gathering tools, parts, or services.
• Repair action – Performing the repair itself.
• Post-repair evaluation – Checking repair success and deciding on continued use.

Each technology supports these stages differently:

• Augmented Reality (AR) focuses on the practical, micro level, helping consumers perform hands-on repair tasks and providing interactive guidance to perform physical repair tasks.
• Internet of Things (IoT) operates at the system level, connecting different stages of the repair journey. It could support both consumers and repair personnels and better connect different stages of the repair journey and different stakeholders by enabling information synchronization and transparency.
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) supports decision-making by interpreting and generating information for consumers. AI also has a special feature of self-learning, which helps iterate/ evolve the information automatically for accuracy.

In short, WP2 demonstrates that repair is not just about fixing a broken product; it is about creating a system where consumers are guided, supported, and empowered throughout the journey. AR, IoT, and AI each play distinct roles, and when combined thoughtfully, they can make repair more feasible, efficient, and acceptable.

Work Package 3: Transition towards a repair economy from an organisational perspective

Nancy Bocken & Christopher Stretton (Maastricht University)

What helps or hinders companies, brands, and other stakeholders in enabling repair practices? We explored the barriers and enablers of repair from the perspectives of key actors across the consumer electronics supply chain. This revealed patterns across different stages of the repair journey:

• Stages of the repair journey matter – Barriers and enablers are most effectively understood when mapped to specific stages of the repair journey.
• Shared and distinct barriers – Consumers and repair companies face similar obstacles, like limited knowledge or resources, while brands encounter issues upstream, such as supplier dependencies and the inertia of established consumption patterns.
• Experience influences action – Past experiences with repair strongly shape future repair decisions.
• Cost is perceived, not always real – Often, cost of repair may merely be an assumed barrier, due to the uncertainty or inconvenience of the repair process as a whole, rather than the actual financial expense.

In short, WP3 shows that encouraging repair requires addressing both practical and systemic barriers. By understanding how different stakeholders experience these challenges, we can design interventions and policies that make repair easier, more predictable, and ultimately more appealing.

Work Package 4: Tax and legal transitions to adopt repair practices

Madeleine Merkx, Emma Briggerman & Johan Vannerom (EUR)

How can changes in tax and legal frameworks encourage repair practices? In WP4, we investigate the barriers in tax and contract law that may discourage repair, as well as opportunities for policy interventions that make repair more feasible and attractive. So far, we have identified the following key conclusions:

Tax incentives

Using the reduced VAT rate to stimulate repairs is not the most effective and efficient way to provide a financial incentive.

Private law barriers and proposed system changes

The consumer lacks clear and transparent information on repair practices. In particular, mandatory information requirements on the level of protection under the legal guarantee and the difference with commercial and manufacturer’s guarantee should be improved.

Legal guarantee protections could better support repair. The Dutch system, which ties the legal guarantee to the reasonable life expectancy of a product, gives consumers an advantage. To boost successful claims to repair the product under the legal guarantee, we propose to:

• expand the duration of the reversed burden of proof period to the actual duration of the legal guarantee (thus synchronizing for the consumer the substantive legal protection and the proof of the non-conformity).
• prioritize repair above replacement of the good as a remedy for non-conformity.

 

In light of product design (cf. the Ecodesign Regulation) duties should be imposed on producers to keep repair parts in stock a couple of years after the last product (update) was commercialised in the market, to deliver those spare parts and the repair manuals to consumers, independent repairers and sellers to fix the broken good, and to make the parts easily accessible for repair (e.g. the location of the battery).

Mandatory recourse by the professional seller to the manufacturer should be fostered.
Intellectual Property rights should no longer restrain access to and the reproduction of repair parts.

Next steps

The research in Tackling Fixophobia is ongoing. Over the coming months, we will continue to explore how consumers and companies can be encouraged to repair their electronics and how systemic barriers can be overcome.

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Learn more about Tackling Fixophobia and the project’s full scope »