*3.3.3 Long-term reliability expectations: essentiality of EEE*

The *Long-term reliability expectations* dimension contains three characteristics: low (e.g. hair drier, electric iron, blender … ), moderate (e.g. coffee machine, mobile phone, DVD player) and high (e.g. washing machine, refrigerator, air conditioner … ). We identify differences in the assessed EEE categories regarding how essential or necessary they are to consumers' day-to-day lives. Moreover, some products are more susceptible to considerations regarding the expected longevity of the equipment. Quite clearly, these two considerations are intertwined in the sense that consumers are likely to strongly consider longevity when purchasing items that they expect to need to use very often. However, they are not equal, since some, e.g. high involvement or large EEE, could include strong considerations of longevity for other reasons, i.e. without it being an essential piece of equipment to one's everyday life. As such we conceptualise this dimension which compositely considers the importance of **longevity considerations** when acquiring the EEE and how **essential** the equipment is to consumers' day-to-day life.

There is a trivial effect of this dimension on purchasing and use behaviours, since we aim to differentiate between EEE that invokes more considerations for longevity and is more frequently needed/used, by definition. It is worth mentioning that this is similar to the influence discussed for involvement of EEE. Despite that, the behavioural outcomes of interest here differ substantially since they are restricted to involvement regarding considerations of longevity and necessity, while the previous dimension is more general. Moreover, these differences are particularly relevant to considerations about repair, restoring and second-hand markets. This is because having longevity in mind develops some expectations that the consumer will tend to meet. In turn, this results in better kept equipment that may be fit for further reuse in remanufacturing or even second-hand markets.
