Household appliances, telephones, bicycles, computers: the trend in these sectors is towards repairs.
The phenomenon, driven by new modes of consumption, has grown in recent times so that supply is struggling to meet demand.
In the household appliance sector in particular, companies complain of a labor shortage.
Read also: Fnac Darty will focus on second-hand products and services
"
Between before and after the health crisis, we have almost doubled the number of requests
"
restorative appliances
"
on Google
," says Guy Pezaku, co-founder and CEO of Murfy, a start-up that specializes in the repair and reconditioning of household appliances. The small company, founded in 2018, experienced at the end of the first confinement an explosion of requests for interventions on its site.
"We said to ourselves that it was going to run out of steam, but it was maintained"
says Guy Pezaku. And a year later, the results are there: in 2020, Murfy achieved 3.5 million turnover and expects to triple in 2021.
The young engineer with
"the spirit of an entrepreneur"
explains this craze for repairs by a desire observed among customers to
"consume better, and in a more responsible way"
. Medhi Dahmani, director of after-sales operations at Fnac-Darty agrees with the observation of the co-founder of Murfy: since 2019, he has observed a
“real awareness”
on the issues of repairability
“which has increased with the health context”
. For the leading group in the sector, this has resulted in a 30 to 40% growth in home interventions. Added to this evolution of consumers, teleworking would also have participated in the increase in demand, "
when you stay at home you use more equipment.
»Explains Laurent Falconieri, president of Compagnie du SAV, the largest independent repairer.
"The training centers have almost all closed"
But the sector, in decline for years, is struggling to respond to this sudden change in demand.
“For 30 years we have been told that progress is being able to buy a washing machine when it breaks down: gradually young people have stopped training in the repair profession, and training centers have almost all closed, ”
explains Guy Pezaku.
Result: only 5,000 repairers work today when "
it would take double"
says the young entrepreneur.
500 technicians by 2025 for Darty
Faced with this shortage, companies are internalizing training to respond as quickly as possible to the increase in demands. Thus, Murfy, which currently has 60 technicians, trains 60 others in its reconditioning workshops.
“This year we should train a total of 150 people”
says the co-founder. Darty, a long-standing player in repair, is not left out and is forming partnerships with the Association for the Professional Training of Adults (AFPA) and the CFA Ducretet to be able to recruit
"500 technicians by 2025"
.
Classes were opened at the start of the year in Paris, Lyon and Marseille, to train apprentice repairers in just 11 months.
Reinforcements welcome for the 2,000 technicians of the group who are struggling to meet the 2.5 million annual after-sales service requests.
A demand that is not about to stop
And for Erwann Fangeat, expert in the Circular Economy and Waste Department of ADEME, this repair trend is not about to stop. In particular, it will be supported in 2022 by an eco-contribution paid by producers of electrical and electronic equipment as part of the application of the “
principle of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)
”. "
This contribution will make it possible to finance a fund to promote repair
" explains Erwann Fangeat, who specifies that the project is
"in the process of being created".
For Laurent Falconieri, the creation of this fund is "
an excellent thing
" but according to him, this initiative would benefit from being accompanied by more daring provisions, a "
Grenelle of repair
”, to promote training because he recalls,“
there are no repairs without repairers
”.
In any event, the establishment of such a fund is an additional guarantee of security for those who still hesitate to train for this profession of the future.
"
We have recruited profiles who come from the catering industry, the hotel industry, or intermittent entertainment
" encourages Mehdi Dahmani who is looking above all for
"motivated people with the fiber" customer relationship "and a little technical background"
.
