Consumers Show Preference For Buying Product Protection Plans From Retailers Over Manufacturers

It’s a common question heard when buying “big-ticket” durable goods: “Would you like a product protection plan for that?” Whether at a traditional cash register, on a website or via a pamphlet mailed or emailed after the fact, it’s a question shoppers have come to expect when it’s time to pay.

In total, 39% of consumers were not offered product protection at checkout, according to The Language Of Trust: Decoding Product Protection Purchasing Behaviors, a PYMNTS and Clyde collaboration that surveyed 2,519 U.S. consumers.

Among consumers who were offered product coverage in the last 12 months, 42% said they were offered product coverage plans online, during the checkout process, while 37% of consumers say they were offered coverage plans by a salesperson in-store.

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Unsurprisingly, the most common reason people buy protection plans is that they’re worried the item might break, at least that’s the reason cited by nearly half — or 49% — of consumers who either purchased product coverage or said they were not offered coverage but would be interested in it.

Three other reasons cited by at least one-third of the consumers were that they trust the company (38%), an item stopped working after the warranty expired (36%) or someone else might break the item (34.9%).

Among consumers who said they were offered a protection plan, 49% said they’d prefer to buy it from the retailer, while 27% said they’d prefer to buy it from the manufacturer.

Only single-digit percentages of consumers said they would prefer to buy it from a third-party provider, a credit card issuer or another source.