Blockchain to the rescue of reconditioned goods: Fnac Darty’s intriguing bet

While the reconditioned sector is gradually becoming structured in Francethe purchase of second-hand goods still remains a minority in the country. The Fnac Darty group would like to reverse the trend by offering more transparency on the journey of its products, starting with household appliances.

In a recently published press releasethe European household appliances and entertainment giant has actually announced the launch of a “digital passport” for second-hand devices, in collaboration with Ecosystem. Based on the blockchain (the traceability system used, among others, by bitcoin), this document reconstructs the entire life history of a device, “from production to end of life“, explains the brand.

Thus, the digital passport of a washing machine will be able to indicate its date of manufacture, the duration of its initial life, the repair operations it has undergone and its fate when it is inevitably thrown into the dumpster. The goal? To offer “total transparency throughout the product life cycle“, notes Nathalie Yserd, general director of Ecosystem.

To allay fears around reconditioned goods

As the press release notes, the “fear of being scammed” is still cited as the major obstacle to the purchase of second-hand household appliances. By offering more complete traceability, Fnac Darty hopes to convince the most skeptical to give reconditioned and second-hand goods a chance. To put it another way, the reconditioned market needs reassurance and stricter supervision to convince the general public. The digital passport is intended to be a solution to these problems.

At the moment, only a handful of devices are affected. More precisely, those used by athletes in the Olympic village during the 2024 Olympics. This handful of products labeled “2nd Life Collectors“at Darty will lay the foundations of this new system. Ultimately, the group wants to extend this tool to all its second-life products at the beginning of 2025, then to all new products within 24 months.

Inspired by the European Union

This deadline is not chosen completely by chance. The solution proposed by Fnac Darty is in fact a simple trial run to gauge the feasibility of “digital product passport» (PNP) required by European regulations on ecodesign. From 2027, this transparency obligation will gradually apply to a whole host of product categories, starting with electronic devices and textiles.

If it is not indicated anywhere in the regulations that this document must be registered on the blockchain, it is a safe bet that Fnac Darty wanted to add a small layer of techno-solutionism to the European project. It remains to be seen exactly what form this digital passport will take, what obligations will fall on the different actors in the value chain and what weight buyers will give to it.

If the experience of the repairability index has taught us anything, it is that, despite legal obligations, many manufacturers and resellers do not play the game. It is encouraging to see Fnac Darty embarking on this adventure, but, as long as there are no legal obligations or means to enforce them, the digital passport will probably have difficulty becoming democratized.