[EN] What if the future of fashion e-commerce is not about selling more, but about servicing better?

As closets and landfills overflow, traditional growth levers in e-commerce are reaching their limits. In the Circular Economy business system, value creation no longer ends at checkout. While fashion resale has already gone mainstream, the next frontier is after-sales services such as repair, alteration, and upcycling. These services extend product life, reduce costly returns, and build long-term customer loyalty beyond discounts.

In this talk, Repair Rebels founder Dr. Monika Hauck shares five years of hands-on experience building Germany’s largest vetted fashion repair network and a scalable Repair-as-a-Service platform for fashion brands. The session explores what it takes to digitize an entirely analog industry — from reverse logistics and non-standardized products to integrating local craftsmanship into digital workflows.

Our prediction: by 2030, every serious e-commerce brand will have an “Ensure 2nd Life” button next to “Compensate Emissions.” With EU regulations such as Ecodesign, Extended Producer Responsibility, Right-to-Repair, and Digital Product Passports becoming reality, repair is shifting from niche to necessity and a growth driver for modern e-commerce business models.