IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/inecol/v27y2023i6p1613-1625.html

Consumer practices regarding the purchase, use, willingness to repair, and disposal of small electric and electronic equipment: A Spanish survey on kettles

Author

Listed:
  • Sonia Sandez
  • Valeria Ibáñez‐Forés
  • Victoria Pérez‐Belis
  • Pablo Juan
  • María D. Bovea

Abstract

Repair is one of the main strategies to extend the lifetime of products in the circular economy framework. With the aim of identifying current consumer practices toward the purchase, use, and end of life of electric and electronic equipment (EEE), including willingness to repair, maintenance, and final disposal, a survey is designed and implemented online, taking kettles as an application case. Regarding current strategies for extending the lifespan of these items, a general lack of maintenance and low levels of reparability or reuse have been detected. Disposal patterns show that nearly half of all kettles disposed of were still functioning. Nevertheless, a future willingness to repair these items has been identified, either by users themselves or at repair centers, if the manufacturer provides the means to do so. Finally, the results reveal that when consumers purchase a kettle, the price and then the energy efficiency score are the main priorities affecting their purchasing decisions, taking priority over the reparability score. These results can help in the design of more focused and direct strategies to promote the reparability of small household appliances, encourage the authorities to regulate the new reparability score in a more efficient way, and improve the way that information is transmitted to users/consumers.

Suggested Citation

  • Sonia Sandez & Valeria Ibáñez‐Forés & Victoria Pérez‐Belis & Pablo Juan & María D. Bovea, 2023. "Consumer practices regarding the purchase, use, willingness to repair, and disposal of small electric and electronic equipment: A Spanish survey on kettles," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 27(6), pages 1613-1625, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:inecol:v:27:y:2023:i:6:p:1613-1625
    DOI: 10.1111/jiec.13444
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/jiec.13444
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/jiec.13444?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Renske van den Berge & Lise Magnier & Ruth Mugge, 2023. "Until death do us part? In‐depth insights into Dutch consumers’ considerations about product lifetimes and lifetime extension," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 27(3), pages 908-922, June.
    2. Hennies, Laura & Stamminger, Rainer, 2016. "An empirical survey on the obsolescence of appliances in German households," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 73-82.
    3. Cox, Jayne & Griffith, Sarah & Giorgi, Sara & King, Geoff, 2013. "Consumer understanding of product lifetimes," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 21-29.
    4. Murray, D.M. & Liao, J. & Stankovic, L. & Stankovic, V., 2016. "Understanding usage patterns of electric kettle and energy saving potential," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 231-242.
    5. Antoine Durand & Simon Hirzel & Clemens Rohde & Marcel Gebele & Carlos Lopes & Emma Olsson & Robin Barkhausen, 2022. "Electric Kettles: An Assessment of Energy-Saving Potentials for Policy Making in the European Union," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(20), pages 1-17, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Letícia Salazar Serra & Solange Alfinito, 2025. "Consumer Behavior in the Circular Economy: A Systematic Review of High-impact Studies," Circular Economy and Sustainability, Springer, vol. 5(6), pages 5315-5349, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kathleen Jacobs & Jacob Hörisch, 2022. "The importance of product lifetime labelling for purchase decisions: Strategic implications for corporate sustainability based on a conjoint analysis in Germany," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(4), pages 1275-1291, May.
    2. Munten, Pauline & Vanhamme, Joëlle, 2023. "To reduce waste, have it repaired! The quality signaling effect of product repairability," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    3. D. Nishijima & M. Oguchi, 2024. "Comparing Product Lifetime Extensions by Enhancing Consumers’ Expected Product Lifetime Among Different Durable Products," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 47(2), pages 223-239, June.
    4. Renske van den Berge & Lise Magnier & Ruth Mugge, 2023. "Until death do us part? In‐depth insights into Dutch consumers’ considerations about product lifetimes and lifetime extension," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 27(3), pages 908-922, June.
    5. Cai, Ya-Jun & Choi, Tsan-Ming, 2020. "A United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals perspective for sustainable textile and apparel supply chain management," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    6. Letícia Salazar Serra & Solange Alfinito, 2025. "Consumer Behavior in the Circular Economy: A Systematic Review of High-impact Studies," Circular Economy and Sustainability, Springer, vol. 5(6), pages 5315-5349, November.
    7. Milovantseva, Natalia & Fitzpatrick, Colin, 2015. "Barriers to electronics reuse of transboundary e-waste shipment regulations: An evaluation based on industry experiences," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 170-177.
    8. Sabbaghi, Mostafa & Behdad, Sara & Zhuang, Jun, 2016. "Managing consumer behavior toward on-time return of the waste electrical and electronic equipment: A game theoretic approach," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 182(C), pages 545-563.
    9. Antoine Durand & Simon Hirzel & Clemens Rohde & Marcel Gebele & Carlos Lopes & Emma Olsson & Robin Barkhausen, 2022. "Electric Kettles: An Assessment of Energy-Saving Potentials for Policy Making in the European Union," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(20), pages 1-17, October.
    10. Thomas Wastling & Fiona Charnley & Mariale Moreno, 2018. "Design for Circular Behaviour: Considering Users in a Circular Economy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-22, May.
    11. Jia, Kunqi & Guo, Ge & Xiao, Jucheng & Zhou, Huan & Wang, Zhihua & He, Guangyu, 2019. "Data compression approach for the home energy management system," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 247(C), pages 643-656.
    12. Fung, Yi-Ning & Chan, Hau-Ling & Choi, Tsan-Ming & Liu, Rong, 2021. "Sustainable product development processes in fashion: Supply chains structures and classifications," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 231(C).
    13. Duong, Quang Huy & Zhou, Li & Van Nguyen, Truong & Meng, Meng, 2025. "Understanding and predicting online product return behavior: An interpretable machine learning approach," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 280(C).
    14. Sezgin Çağlar Aksezer, 2023. "Sustainability via Extended Warranty Contracts: Design for a Consumer Electronics Retailer," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(1), pages 1-11, December.
    15. Liu, Bo & Luan, Wenpeng & Yu, Yixin, 2017. "Dynamic time warping based non-intrusive load transient identification," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 195(C), pages 634-645.
    16. Gianmarco Bressanelli & Nicola Saccani & Marco Perona & Irene Baccanelli, 2020. "Towards Circular Economy in the Household Appliance Industry: An Overview of Cases," Resources, MDPI, vol. 9(11), pages 1-23, November.
    17. Ahmadi-Karvigh, Simin & Ghahramani, Ali & Becerik-Gerber, Burcin & Soibelman, Lucio, 2018. "Real-time activity recognition for energy efficiency in buildings," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 211(C), pages 146-160.
    18. Ackermann, Laura & Tunn, Vivian S.C., 2024. "Careless product use in access-based services: A rebound effect and how to address it," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 177(C).
    19. Salman Alfarisi & Yuya Mitake & Yusuke Tsutsui & Hanfei Wang & Yoshiki Shimomura, 2023. "Nurture: A Novel Approach to PSS-Rebound Effect Identification," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(9), pages 1-25, April.
    20. Zhao, Bochao & Ye, Minxiang & Stankovic, Lina & Stankovic, Vladimir, 2020. "Non-intrusive load disaggregation solutions for very low-rate smart meter data," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 268(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:inecol:v:27:y:2023:i:6:p:1613-1625. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=1088-1980 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.