Professional repairs are being disrupted by difficulty in sourcing parts from manufacturers, according to research from aftermarket tech specialist Partful, formerly SamsonVT.
Consumers are also struggling as their ‘Right to Repair’ needs are not being adequately met. The professional repairer survey was conducted independently by OnePoll, and included 250 ‘professional repairers’ in the UK that commonly buy spare parts from multiple vendors.
Partful says pressure is mounting on businesses to provide easier access to spare parts and repair instructions, with UK legislation to help end planned obsolescence set to make this compulsory for electrical products by July 2023.
Partful’s survey found that 83% of DIY repairers say they struggle to identify and find replacement parts at least some of the time. While almost a third (30%) said they struggle at least most of the time.
Over half of professionals said they need to check, research or seek help to accurately identify parts ‘more often than not’. A quarter of professional repairers said errors such as receiving the wrong part arise with 20% of orders placed, while 10% said it happens as much as once in every three orders.
When asked what manufacturers can do to support them better, the top answer from both DIY and professionals was to “make it easier to accurately identify parts”.
Sam Burgess, CEO of Partful, said: “The Right to Repair movement is not a fleeting trend, and calls for greater sustainability are not going away any time soon. If these customer needs are going to be met, the manufacturing industry will need to transform the current after sales customer experience.
“This is likely to lead to a digital revolution as manufacturing moves away from the old school basic PDF parts catalogues and repair manuals and embraces interactive platforms. This will increase the accuracy of ordering, cut out all those costly errors, allow for more direct sales and enable faster parts fulfilment.”
When DIY repairers were asked why they chose to repair products, the most popular reason given (by 46%) was because they didn’t want to scrap products unnecessarily as this was considered wasteful and not environmentally friendly. Half (50%) also said they would pay more than 30% of the original product price for a spare part, while a quarter (25%) would pay more than 50% to keep their products running longer.