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From Frictionless Buying to Seamless Repair: How Brands Can Redefine Aftercare

WORDS BY Sophia Al-khayat
26 Mar 2025
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Printed Clothing Garment Being Measured
To explore how brands can shift from a linear to a truly circular approach, Jennifer Barrios, Founder of Fashion Reframe shares her expert insights. With over 15 years in product creation and marketing, Jennifer has worked on pioneering initiatives that redefine sustainability in fashion. Her experience in developing award-winning innovations and earning a Cambridge certification in Circular Economy gives her unique insight into how brands can embed repairability into their business models, not just as an afterthought, but as an integral part of the customer experience. Jennifer shared why brands must rethink how they approach repair, from product design to digital integration and how making repair effortless is the key to shifting consumer behaviour.

Bridging the Gap Between Durability and Repair

For years, brands have perfected hassle-free shopping experiences, prioritising speed, convenience, and seamless transactions. But when it comes to aftercare, the customer is often left to navigate the process alone.

According to Jennifer Barrios, Founder of Fashion Reframe, this needs to change:

“I keep coming back to the need for brands to set up or integrate systems, processes, platforms to facilitate repair, ensure the option for repair is clearly communicated and accessible. The conscious choice is often expensive or cumbersome and up to the customer to figure out. To help close the attitude-behaviour gap, the conscious choice needs to become the convenient choice.”

The challenge? Repair services are still not the default for many consumers.

  • Barriers like cost, accessibility, and awareness prevent repair from becoming the natural first step.
  • Current aftercare models are often fragmented, requiring customers to seek out solutions themselves.
  • Fast fashion’s influence has conditioned consumers to replace rather than repair.

To shift behaviour, brands must go beyond offering repair as an option, they must integrate it into the customer journey.

Rethinking Design: Built for Repair, Not Just Durability

Jennifer highlights a key area brands often overlook—product design:

“This starts with how we design products - for example, how a garment is constructed so that trims can be easily removed and replaced, to how we design systems - the whole customer experience.”

Designing for repairability should be as fundamental as designing for durability.

Key Steps for Brands to Enable Repairability

  • Modular Product Construction: Make components like zippers, buttons, and soles easy to replace.
  • Seamless Booking Platforms: Offer a digital-first repair experience through integrations.
  • Customer Education: Ensure aftercare messaging is embedded at the point of purchase.
  • Incentives for Repair: Encourage uptake with subsidised repair schemes like France’s Repair Fund.

Redefining Customer Experience: Beyond the Point of Purchase

One of the most striking points Jennifer raises is the need to extend customer experience beyond checkout:

“There has been so much emphasis on customer experience and removing friction up until the point of purchase, we now need to invest in better understanding and improving how our customers live with our products (and what we can do to help extend that life).”

The shift from linear to circular thinking means brands must stop viewing aftercare as an extra service—instead, it should be a core part of the business model.

The Business Case for Repair: Loyalty, Engagement & Sustainability

When repair becomes effortless, customers are more likely to return, strengthening loyalty, reducing waste, and reinforcing brand values.

  • 55%+ of customers who book a repair return for a second service.
  • Circular models increase brand trust and consumer engagement.
  • Sustainability-driven brands are seeing stronger retention and brand advocacy.

By embedding seamless, accessible repair solutions, brands can lead the charge towards a more sustainable industry, where the conscious choice is also the easiest one.

The Future of Repair: A Collective Effort

The shift towards durable design and accessible repair services isn't just about extending the lifespan of garments—it’s about transforming the fashion industry’s relationship with waste. Brands that integrate repair into their business models are not only meeting growing consumer demand for sustainable solutions but also strengthening customer loyalty. As Jennifer highlights, the conscious choice needs to become the convenient choice.

By embedding repair into product design, offering seamless aftercare services, and making repair as accessible as buying new, brands can bridge the attitude-behaviour gap and create real, lasting change.

Want to learn more about Jennifer’s work in circular fashion? Explore Fashion Reframe and discover how her expertise is helping brands build a more sustainable future.

At Save Your Wardrobe, we provide brands with the tools to seamlessly integrate repair services, bridging the gap between sustainability and convenience. Get in touch to power your aftercare strategy today.