On a recent tour of central London stores with some retail clients, they were amazed at how many brands offer repair services and are moving to ‘products for life’ mentalities.
Finisterre, not for the first time, stands out as best practice in the world of product repairs. Firstly it offers the customer videos and manuals on how to care for products to avoid the need for repairs. These include how to machine wash a wetsuit.
At the next step, customers are supported by the option to repair themselves. For a nominal fee, they can buy appropriate repair kits for each product type & material. Fully supported by repair workshops, and videos.
There is also the option to let Finisterre do the repairs in one of their shops. In the flagship store in Covent Garden you can meet the repairer, and chat to them, whilst you watch them at work. A totally delightful experience.
From a sustainable perspective it makes total sense to repair. If you buy half the amount of clothes you would normally, because you repair them, and use them for longer, then you reduce your impact on the planet by 50%.
Compared with the complexities of unravelling the truth behind the constituents of product materials, and the mind-numbing greenwashing of brands, this is a way we can all make a decisive and tangible difference.
However, for repair to really happen on a meaningful scale there are 2 thresholds that need to be crossed by the customer. Is the product worth repairing? Why should the customer be interested in the repair process?
And the way to get customers positively across both thresholds requires more than just the facilities and services to repair.
It requires a total brand immersion, and that begins for the business, through instilling in the customer an initial product pride, a sense of ownership, and a feeling of product responsibility.
Your product must be ‘worth’ repairing? Where ‘worth’ is not just about price. It is about quality & value to the customer.
‘Worth’ is what every retailer must instill in its customers, in the way that it treats and values its own products. And in fact, a repair service is part of that important process to communicate product value & ‘worth.’
And the answer to ‘why’ must also come through the retail brand to instill in their customers the ‘worth’ of their brand.
Again ‘worth’ is not just about price, but ‘value.’ How much value does a brand attach to its business, to its supply chain and employees, to its customers, and the world it lives in.
Take Finisterre again as best practice. They have taken upon themselves the ‘responsibility’ to care for the oceans of this planet, and make them accessible to everyone
Through their words and actions they have earned credibility, so that customers buy into a mutual responsibility to take care of the oceans.
Customers do not hesitate to have their products repaired.
Neither the brand, nor the customer would ever contemplate the alternative of sending their clothes to landfill!
Repair is on the rise, alongside, re-sell and re-purpose. The web and many local physical communities are home to craftspeople and entrepreneurs who keep ‘valued & worthy’ products in customer circulation.
And so for those brands that produce ‘valued & worthy’ products the commercial danger is that the products, the customers and the revenues from repair and re-sell go to these other businesses.
Commercially the route forwards for brands must now include maximising every ‘customer for life,’ through supporting and facilitating them to enjoy every ‘product for life.’
Is your product worth repairing? And does you customer feel the responsibility to do so?
Are you working with your customer on this?
Are you a ‘valued & worthy’ brand?
Is it your brand, not your product, that is in need of repair?