Cash-strapped WA consumers are increasingly spending more on repairs rather than purchasing replacement items as the persistent cost-of-living crunch bites into budgets. Fresh credit and debit spending data from Bankwest revealed repair shops posted a 22 per cent growth in value in the year to May, and up 6 per cent month-on-month from April. Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre senior research fellow Daniel Kiely said consumers were likely trying “to get a bit more life” out of their existing items, rather than purchasing new ones.
He named cobblers, tailors, watchmakers and mobile phone repairs as some examples that fall within the spending category. Dr Kiely said mobile phones in particular were “such a big expenditure” for households. Journalism for the curious Australian across politics, business, culture and opinion.
“Previously, where people may have had a cracked screen and may have gone and replace the entire phone, they’re probably now looking to replace that screen to minimise costs,” he said. “It’s forcing us to make better use and more use of our existing products and there could be some benefits from that for the environment, for landfill.” But the Bankwest data also revealed repair shops posted a 29 per cent decline in the number of customers transacting, and a 13 per cent drop in volume growth year-on-year.
“Part of that growth in value is not necessarily a growth in the number of unique customers, it seems to be more of a growth in the costs.