Estimation of willingness to pay for repair services in different years of product lifetime extension: contingent valuation approach
摘要
Expanding repair services is a main strategy of a circular economy. However, extending product lifetimes through repair reduces revenues from selling manufacturers’ products. Therefore, understanding consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for repair services across product lifetime extensions of different years is beneficial to consider effective ways of integrating repair businesses with product sales. However, differences in their WTP for repair service over product lifetime extensions of different years have not yet been investigated. Focusing on air conditioners and refrigerators in Japan as case studies, this study examines differences in the consumers’ WTP using contingent valuation. The results reveal that people who have experienced repair services or are satisfied with the capacity of their refrigerators tend to have a higher probability of choosing repairs and a higher WTP for repair services. Furthermore, although the absolute values of WTP in the case of a five-year extension of repair are higher than those in the case of a three-year extension, a three-year extension is more effective than a five-year extension in terms of generating additional annual revenue. The results also indicated that promoting repair service has sufficient potential to overcome decrease in sales of selling products due to product lifetime extension by repair.