Right to Repair

Right to Repair regulation directly affects refurbishment economics by improving access to genuine spare parts at reasonable cost. When manufacturers are required to supply parts independently of authorised service networks, refurbishers can repair a broader range of fault types and recover more devices to resaleable condition rather than routing them to parts harvesting or recycling. The EU Right to Repair directive adopted in 2024 covers smartphones and tablets explicitly, making it a significant regulatory tailwind for the European recommerce sector.

Before Right to Repair legislation, independent refurbishers in many markets faced significant parts access barriers. OEMs could restrict genuine parts to their own authorised service networks, limiting what independent operators could repair and at what cost. This parts scarcity inflated repair costs and made it uneconomical to recover devices with specific fault types, routing more inventory to parts harvesting or recycling than the device's recoverable value would otherwise justify.

The pricing implications of Right to Repair extend to the whole recommerce value chain. Lower repair costs increase the proportion of devices that can be economically refurbished to resaleable condition, expanding supply in certified refurbished channels. Wider supply in those channels tends to exert downward pressure on prices over time. For operators, the long-term effect of Right to Repair on secondary market prices is a factor to incorporate into depreciation modelling and resale value forecasting, particularly for models with historically expensive repair components.