A label answers one question
The JRC’s 2025 repairability rating addresses how repairable a phone or tablet is. It does not quote a household’s eventual repair bill.
European Commission / JRC02 / CONSUMER GOODS
Better products.
A better deal?
Investigating when longer-lasting products deliver better value—and what makes that value available to more households.
01 / The question
What does it cost
to keep it working?
Good engineering does not guarantee an affordable repair. Parts pricing, labour, reliability, and time without the product can change the result. We want to understand the whole offer, from the initial purchase to the service that keeps it working.
The service market changes the price
BEUC’s 2026 check found a vacuum battery costing more than the original appliance. That specific example gives us a market question worth investigating.
BEUC02 / Make the argument testable
An option has a price.
Our fictional appliance comparison makes the tradeoff visible. An $80 purchase premium buys the chance to avoid $140 after a failure. Whether that pays off depends on reliability, repair cost, and the household’s constraints.
UPFRONT PREMIUM$80
Paid before a failure occurs.
SAVING PER FAILURE$140
$220 replacement − $80 repair.
BREAK-EVEN PROBABILITY57%
Approximate chance of one relevant failure.
35% failure probabilityRepairable costs $31 more
70% failure probabilityRepairable costs $18 less
Hypothetical five-year comparison: $220 basic product or $300 repairable product. Equal failure probability; at most one failure; successful repair or replacement. Excludes financing, downtime, and residual value. This is a sensitivity example, not a product forecast.
03 / The investigation we would run
Audit the offer,
not just the object.
Start with a defined product category, comparable products, and a dated sample of locations. Collect complete repair quotes and publish where the evidence ends.
PROPOSED STUDY
A research plan informed by published evidence. Data collection has not begun.
- 01
Complete repair cost
Parts, diagnosis, labour, delivery, and any failed repair attempt. A missing quote remains missing—not free.
- 02
Service restored
Turnaround, success, repeat faults, and the practical cost of living without the product.
- 03
Evidence of reliability
The installed population and time in use. Repair-shop records alone cannot establish failure rates.
- 04
Household feasibility
The upfront payment, access to service, and the largest bill someone must meet at once.
What would change our view?
If ordinary repair charges erase the expected saving, the product needs a different price or service model. If a loan product or a capped repair bill matters more than easier disassembly, that is where the next design effort should go.
04 / The full argument
ANALYSIS / CONSUMER GOODS / 7 MIN READ
Built to last. Priced to throw away.
You can take it apart. Great. Now price the spare part, the labour, and a week without it. That is where the real design test begins.
READ THE ARTICLE↗ / Where this could lead
A question worth working on.
We want to identify opportunities for products and service networks that make keeping something useful a dependable, affordable choice.