Editor’s Note
This article highlights how the EU’s upcoming digital product passport (DPP) requirements align with luxury consumers’ desire for greater transparency. For brands, this presents a strategic opportunity to deepen customer relationships by integrating authentication, repair, and resale features directly into product data.
When it comes to digital product passports (DPPs) — the set of information that will be required on all fashion goods in the EU in the coming years — more is better for luxury consumers, who say they want to know about where their goods came from. This presents an opportunity for luxury brands to enhance loyalty and engagement through additional features such as authentication, repair and warranty information, and resale capabilities.
That’s according to a study of luxury consumers conducted this April by digital identity tech provider Authentique, in collaboration with customer and brand experience agency Me, the Customer and I. The study asked 330 luxury consumers to rate the attributes they are most interested in using and the types of products for which they would be most compelling.
Digital product passports are part of the EU’s Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation, set to go into effect as early as 2026 and required for all products sold in the EU by 2030. They are often compared to a sort of standardized food label for clothes, offering information on the materials and geographic origin, the environmental footprint and chemical compliance, and how to care for the product. They are often linked to goods through an NFC chip or QR code or, as with Authentique’s technology, can be linked using a digital fingerprint and an augmented reality overlay.
The five attributes consumers said they’d be most likely to use, each ranking at least 80 per cent or more, are:
– Product information
– Certificates of authenticity
– Aftercare and repair instructions
– Warranty information
– Resale information
The categories they most expect to have DPPs are handbags, watches and jewellery (all about 80 per cent or more), followed by small leather goods, clothing and outerwear (all roughly 40 per cent). The category with the least interest for DPPs is footwear, at 29 per cent.
The top brand from which consumers expect DPPs is Chanel, at almost half (46 per cent). The other top brands expected to offer DPPs include Gucci, Hermès, Prada, Dior and Louis Vuitton, all at least 30 per cent or more.
Proponents say that DPPs could become a key lever in luxury resale by helping consumers more easily list goods with accurate, authenticated and complete information and enabling brands to decrease production without sacrificing profit. The DPP can be designed to link both with external platforms to facilitate a brand’s own in-house service.
Currently, only about a quarter of consumers buy secondhand, but 56 per cent would be more inclined to do so if DPPs were available, according to the research. Additionally, 65 per cent said that they thought that DPPs would facilitate resale.
Earlier this month, Arianee, a Web3 fashion company that works with brands including Breitling and Moncler to create DPPs, issued a paper outlining the potential for DPPs to enable resale and add value to existing products. In terms of enabling repair, resale and remanufacturing, “the economic case is increasingly clear because it allows companies to create multiple revenues from one product,” wrote the researchers.
More than half of luxury consumers (53 per cent) have already heard of DPPs, and one quarter are familiar with some of their potential functionalities.
