A key principle of the circular economy is to fundamentally reconsider the nature of the transaction between producer and consumer. To facilitate circularity and enhance sustainability, producers retain ownership of a product throughout its lifetime, and consumers lease, rent, or share the product. This paper examines the feasibility of leasing instead of buying a product from both the consumer's and manufacturer's perspectives. We focus on repeated leasing with refurbishment in-between for the specific case of washing machines. Through an online experiment, we assess the preferences of consumers among the alternatives of purchasing a new machine and leasing a new or a used machine. The results reveal that the market is segmented and consumers have distinct preferences driven by psychological antecedents such as disgust, pride of ownership, and convenience of leasing. While there is some demand for leasing new and used machines, there are also barriers to the transition from selling to leasing: a significant number of consumers prefer to buy instead of lease at any price that would sustain a manufacturer's profitability. Moreover, there appears to be an imbalance in the consumer demand for leasing new and leasing used—a mismatch that poses an obstacle to the economic feasibility of a circular economy.

中文翻译：

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消费者对循环商业模式的接受程度及其对经济绩效的潜在影响：洗衣机案例

循环经济的一个关键原则是从根本上重新考虑生产者和消费者之间交易的性质。为了促进循环性和增强可持续性，生产者在产品的整个生命周期内保留对产品的所有权，而消费者则租赁、出租或共享产品。本文从消费者和制造商的角度考察了租赁而不是购买产品的可行性。我们专注于针对洗衣机的特定情况进行重复租赁和翻新。通过在线实验，我们评估了消费者在购买新机器和租用新机器或二手机器的选择中的偏好。结果表明，市场是细分的，消费者有不同的偏好，这些偏好受到心理前因的驱动，例如厌恶、拥有的自豪感、以及租赁的便利性。虽然对租赁新旧机器有一定的需求，但从销售到租赁的过渡也存在障碍：大量消费者更愿意以任何可以维持制造商盈利能力的价格购买而不是租赁。此外，消费者对租赁新旧租赁的需求似乎不平衡——这种不匹配对循环经济的经济可行性构成了障碍。