Repair price strongly shapes consumer decisions between repair and replacement. High repair prices relative to the cost of new products often deter repair, driving premature replacement and electronic waste. This study assesses the economic viability of repair for washing machines (WMs) and vacuum cleaners (VCs) in France and Belgium using real market data and two willingness-to-pay-for-repair (WTPR) models. Case studies of six representative appliances show a consistent pattern: low-cost products fall far outside consumers’ repair thresholds, mid-range models sit in borderline zones, and only high-end units remain economically repairable. Threshold analysis shows that repair becomes viable only at higher purchase prices, generally €300-€1,000 depending on the WTPR model, repair prices, and product tier. A market-wide Monte Carlo simulation confirms these trends. Only 5% of Belgian WMs and 16% of French WMs fall within viable repair thresholds. For VCs, around 67% of VCs sold in France and Belgium are unlikely to be repaired. Scaled to 2024 sales, this equates to roughly 3.5 million appliances in France and 1.3 million in Belgium, effectively steered toward replacement. The study offers a scalable method for estimating national repair rates and highlights the need for improved WTPR models to support emerging EU repair policies. Download: Download Word document (49KB)
Bunodiere et al. (2026) studied this question.