The impact of convenience attributes on the willingness-to-pay for repair services

Excessive cost and inconvenient services are frequent reasons people do not use repair services for consumer goods. By using conjoint analysis we aim to quantify the relative importance of repair price and convenience attributes and determine how they affect a consumer's willingness-to-pay (WTP) for repair services. Our results suggest that the relative importance of attributes such as repair price and time, and guarantees for repair or repair company authorisations, is stable across the different considered product categories. Yet, we find that the relative importance of repair price (which is unanimously highest) declines and convenience attributes are becoming more relevant when considering more expensive products. Finally, WTP for repair only slightly increases for more expensive products according to our study. Our results can help repair companies to improve their service. They can also inform policy-makers on designing a repair-promoting environment.