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Gnana Cooper Cole Oguchi PLATE 2017 Consumenr perspectives national study.pdf (2.09 MB)

Consumer perspectives on product lifetimes: a national study of lifetime satisfaction and purchasing factors

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conference contribution
posted on 2018-09-24, 14:08 authored by Alex Gananpragasam, Tim Cooper, Christine Cole, Masahiro Oguchi
The extension of product lifetimes of consumer goods has the potential to encourage sustainable consumption, reduce carbon emissions and facilitate a transition to a circular economy. However, current understandings of consumer perspectives on product lifetimes are limited. This paper presents the findings of the first national study of consumer satisfaction with product lifetimes across an exhaustive range of consumer durables. The research was undertaken in the United Kingdom where consumer satisfaction and purchasing factors were studied across eighteen product categories. These product categories were devised from academic and market research undertaken at Nottingham Trent University. In total, 2,207 participants completed the survey and the sample profile was similar to the United Kingdom's population with respect to age and gender. The results indicate that consumers appear generally satisfied with the lifetimes of their products and suggest that efforts to extend product lifetimes should focus on developing business and policy options. However, participants also emphasised that longevity, reliability and guarantee length were important factors in their purchasing decisions. Consumer interest in these factors could indicate that lifetime labelling and the promotion of longer guarantees by manufacturers and retailers may offer pathways to reduce energy and material consumption associated with short-lived products, facilitating movement towards a low carbon circular economy.

Funding

This project was financially supported by the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council’s Centre for Industrial Energy, Materials and Products (grant reference EP/N022645/1).

History

School

  • Architecture, Building and Civil Engineering

Published in

PLATE: Product lifetimes and the environment 2017

Pages

144 - 148

Citation

GNANAPRAGASAM, A. ... et al., 2017. Consumer perspectives on product lifetimes: a national study of lifetime satisfaction and purchasing factors. IN: Bakker, C.A. and Mugge, R. (eds.) PLATE: Product lifetimes and the environment: Conference Proceedings of PLATE 2017, 8-10 November 2017, Delft, the Netherlands. Amsterdam: IOS Press, pp. 144-148.

Publisher

IOS Press (Delft University)

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

Acceptance date

2017-11-08

Publication date

2017

Notes

This is an Open Access Article. It is published by IOS under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

ISBN

9781614998198;9781614998204

Book series

Research in Design Series;9

Language

  • en

Location

Delft, Netherlands