Aftersales: New Frontier

For many years, the conversation around sustainability in supply chain has focused on headline issues like carbon emissions, packaging reduction, and electrification of transport. These are important priorities, but they only tell part of the story while an area that has remained largely underutilized and holds immense potential is aftersales. In the never-ending quest to be truly customer centric as a supply chain, having an intentional aftersales strategy is essential.

Aftersales refers to the post-purchase ecosystem: servicing, repairs, spare parts fulfillment, customer support, and increasingly, refurbishment and recommerce. Once treated as a necessary cost center, it is now emerging as a key strategic function with powerful implications for sustainability, customer loyalty, and operational efficiency.

This shift is happening now for several reasons, whether it’s consumers becoming more conscious of product longevity and waste, regulators imposing stricter requirements on repairability and extended producer responsibility or simply businesses, under financial pressure, are recognizing the value trapped in returns and repairs. Aftersales sits at the intersection of these forces and is fast becoming the new frontier in sustainable supply chain management.

Refurbishment and repair directly extend the lifespan of products, reducing the need for new materials and production cycles while smart planning around service parts prevents excess manufacturing and waste. Reverse logistics, when optimized, helps minimize emissions by reducing unnecessary transport miles. Aftersales, as with all areas of Supply Chain, is effective with good data: as teams become more data-driven, they can feed service failure data and materials insights back into design processes, creating a continuous loop of improvement. In essence, aftersales becomes the critical feedback engine for both environmental stewardship and better product development.

I’ve had the privilege of seeing the impact of aftersales sustainability efforts firsthand. During my time leading logistics and aftersales for a global consumer electronics company, we made significant strides in Canada by optimizing our refurbishment processes. We put enormous focus on reducing scrap rate and transitioned to recyclable packaging materials—demonstrating that thoughtful process improvement could yield both environmental and financial benefits. Since returning to the United States, my current role has allowed me to focus more fully on aftersales as a core operational strategy, and I’ve become even more passionate about its potential to drive sustainability while improving the customer experience.

Despite its growing relevance, aftersales often lacks visibility in sustainability roadmaps. This is partly due to legacy thinking where it has long been managed separately from core supply chain or product teams. It’s also harder to measure direct ROI from repairs or refurbished sales, especially when compared to initiatives like bulk transport savings or packaging reductions. Thankfully, that’s changing and more businesses are beginning to realize that a returned product is not a loss—it’s a resource. Thinking outside of supply chain to a holistic business view, customers who experience meaningful post-sale engagement often develop stronger brand loyalty, ultimately increasing lifetime value.

Some companies are already leading the way. Patagonia has built an entire recommerce program through Worn Wear, encouraging repairs and resales as a sustainability-first offering. Apple’s certified refurbished product line makes sustainability accessible to a broader customer base. These companies are proving that aftersales isn’t just about fixing what’s broken but about building a responsible relationship with the product lifecycle.

Aftersales is also critical to enabling the circular economy, It is the point where supply chains can turn linear flows into regenerative ones, wher returned goods become inventory and recovered/harvested parts become input. Packaging feedback becomes design insight. Put simply, aftersales creates the opportunity to create the infrastructure to recapture value rather than letting used products disappear into waste streams that can be both environmentally and financially harmful.

From a leadership perspective, there is a growing business case to prioritize aftersales: companies that build robust aftersales capabilities benefit in four major ways: improved brand reputation through responsible product support, enhanced preparedness for regulatory shifts, creation of high-margin refurbished product lines, and access to better product and customer data. The returns may be indirect at first, but they are meaningful and compounding.

In my own experience, the journey to elevating aftersales begins with visibility, which in turn comes from enhanced collaboration. Mapping the reverse flow of goods and data reveals inefficiencies and opportunities that would otherwise remain hidden and involving aftersales teams in sustainability/ESG conversations ensures that their insights (and impact) are no longer siloed. Piloting focused initiatives, such as small-scale refurbishment or sustainable parts sourcing, creates momentum for broader transformation.

Ultimately, sustainability doesn’t stop at the loading dock. In fact, many of the most overlooked environmental wins happen after the point of sale. Aftersales represents the next phase of supply chain maturity—not just operationally, but culturally. It asks us to shift our thinking from fulfillment to stewardship. From product sales to product lifespan. From value creation to value retention.

Sustainability is no longer optional, and customer expectations continue to rise. Companies that embrace aftersales as a platform for responsible growth will not only meet these expectations—they’ll redefine what sustainable supply chain excellence looks like.