The Digital Product Passport will make defined product information accessible to consumers and other authorised actors across the EU market. The information available to each audience will depend on the applicable product-specific requirements and access rights.
But making information available does not mean consumers will understand it, trust it or use it.
For companies, compliance is the starting point. For the same implementation to generate value beyond the regulatory requirement, the DPP must also give consumers a reason to engage with it.
A DPP can support purchasing decisions, make repair and resale easier, guide end-of-life actions and maintain a connection between the product, its owner and the brand. Whether this value materialises depends on how product data are selected, organised and presented.
Consumer research conducted by Consumers International, together with recent studies focused specifically on fashion, provides a clearer picture of what makes Digital Product Passports genuinely useful.
Consumers International, the global membership organisation for consumer groups, conducted its initial study in 2025 as part of a wider project on consumer-centred Digital Product Passports. The organisation brings together more than 200 consumer organisations across over 100 countries.
The final findings were published in February 2026 and subsequently presented during a GS1 France webinar on consumer expectations and the future of the DPP in September 2026.
Consumers International is now extending this work by road-testing consumer-facing passports in real market settings, examining how people access, understand, trust and use product information during actual purchasing and ownership experiences.
The research therefore represents more than an early perception survey. It provides a starting framework for designing the consumer-facing layer of DPPs as companies move from technical preparation to implementation.
The research focused on smartphones and involved 1,000 consumers in Germany, divided into five independent samples of 200 participants. The sample provides indicative evidence of consumer responses but should not be treated as representative of all German or European consumers.
Consumers were shown a prototype Digital Product Passport through narrated walkthroughs covering five decisions across the product lifecycle:
Each respondent evaluated one of the five use cases. The study measured the perceived usefulness and comprehensibility of the passport, as well as its potential influence on consumer behaviour.
The research is specific to smartphones and should not be treated as a direct representation of every product category. However, the decisions it examines - purchase, maintenance, repair, resale and end of life - are relevant to many of the sectors preparing for Digital Product Passports.
Across the tested use cases:
These results suggest that consumers can recognise the value of a DPP when its purpose is clear. The passport becomes relevant when it helps answer a practical question, rather than simply presenting a large collection of product data.
Before purchase, this could mean helping someone compare product characteristics or understand expected durability. During ownership, it could provide care, maintenance or repair guidance. At resale, it could make product condition and history easier to assess. At the end of life, it could direct the owner towards an appropriate collection or recycling service.
The consumer does not necessarily need more information. The consumer needs the right information for the decision being made.
The study also shows why a single static product page is unlikely to generate the same value throughout a product’s lifecycle.
For repair decisions, consumers valued information such as estimated costs, access to original spare parts and authorised or certified repair services. These elements can help someone determine whether repairing a product is practical.
For resale, useful information included product condition, battery health and previous repairs. A persistent digital record can reduce information gaps between the current owner, a prospective buyer and the resale service.
At the end of life, participants responded to clear collection points, return instructions and possible second-life routes.
The underlying product may remain the same, but the information that matters changes according to the user, the moment and the action they are trying to complete.
The Consumers International research also identified barriers to adoption.
A DPP competes for attention with product reviews, brand reputation, recommendations, price and established consumer habits. Technical terminology, excessive detail and uncertainty about the credibility of information can further reduce engagement. Privacy concerns may arise when the experience includes registration, ownership or personalised services.
This means a complete regulatory dataset does not automatically create an effective consumer experience.
Companies need to distinguish between:
Layering the experience allows each audience to reach the relevant information without forcing every user to navigate the entire passport dataset.
The smartphone study provides a useful lifecycle framework, but recent fashion research helps clarify how these principles apply to apparel and textiles.
A 2025 consumer study commissioned by Finnish Textile & Fashion examined how Finnish consumers perceive increasing product transparency in the textile and fashion industry.
The study found that information needs and motivations vary considerably between consumers. Interest was often connected with practical factors such as material quality, responsible manufacturing, care, repair and extending the useful life of a product.
Its central conclusion is particularly relevant for DPP implementation: companies cannot assume that product information alone will lead to different decisions. Data need to be translated into useful communication or services and presented at the right moment in the customer journey.
The study was qualitative, comprising eight individual interviews and two group interviews involving eight additional participants. It does not provide market-wide adoption figures, but it offers detailed evidence of how consumers encounter product information in real purchasing contexts.
A separate peer-reviewed academic study published earlier in 2026 surveyed 548 Italian consumers about clothing purchases and the value they associate with fashion products carrying a Digital Product Passport. The research was conducted within the PEACE and MICS research programmes, supported by NextGenerationEU funding.
When evaluating a garment, participants rated price at approximately 7.5 out of 10 and aesthetics at 7.3, compared with around 5.6 for environmental impact. Durability, raw materials, product origin and workers’ rights occupied the middle of the ranking.
The priorities changed when participants were asked specifically which information they considered important within a DPP. The highest-rated data concerned:
The findings reveal an important distinction. Environmental impact may not be the strongest driver of the original purchase, but consumers can still value access to detailed information once it is connected with a specific product.
The study also tested willingness to pay using a pair of jeans as the reference product. The average additional value respondents associated with jeans carrying a DPP ranged from approximately €7.5 among Millennials to more than €10 among Boomers. Women assigned a higher additional value than men across every generation included in the sample.
These results measure stated preferences rather than observed purchasing behaviour. They should therefore not be interpreted as evidence that a DPP will automatically generate a price premium. They nevertheless indicate that the consumer value of a DPP does not depend exclusively on people who already prioritise sustainability.
A more recent peer-reviewed study published in October 2026 examined consumers’ intentions to use Digital Product Passports regularly, rather than accessing them only once.
The research involved 344 consumers in Germany and 195 in Spain. Participants were presented with either a pre-purchase scenario, in which a DPP helped them evaluate a product, or a post-purchase scenario involving care, repair, resale and disposal.
The intention to use the DPP regularly was stronger in the post-purchase context. Across the two samples, the main drivers of regular use intention were:
Anticipated habit emerged as a necessary condition across both scenarios and samples. The relevance of usefulness and ease of use varied according to the context, while participants’ qualitative responses repeatedly identified usability as a prerequisite.
This adds an important dimension to the consumer experience. The DPP may create more sustained engagement after the sale than at the original point of purchase, especially when it provides access to care instructions, repair support, resale information or end-of-life services.
For companies, the implication is practical: the consumer-facing DPP should be designed as a lasting product touchpoint, rather than as a page that customers are expected to scan only while shopping.
The applicable legislation will define the mandatory data, access rights and technical requirements for each product category. This compliance layer provides the foundation for the consumer experience.
The information available to consumers can then be organised around practical moments such as purchase, care, repair, resale and end of life, together with any voluntary content and services offered by the company. The research suggests that clear utility and ease of use will determine whether consumers continue engaging with the DPP beyond an initial scan.
Renoon supports companies in building the regulatory foundation for Digital Product Passports and connecting it with consumer-facing experiences that can evolve across products, collections and lifecycle services.
Speak with our team about your Digital Product Passport project.
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