How online retailers and consumers can benefit from digital product information to support energy-efficient choices

Peer-reviewed paper 8-204-26

This paper investigates how digital product information and user experience (UX) design can be leveraged in online retail to support energy efficient consumer choices. Drawing on two complementary projects, it combines empirical evidence on consumers’ interest with practical design ideas for e-commerce.

The first part reports findings from a consumer survey conducted between November 2024 and January 2025 within the EU LIFE funded EPREL Services project, covering more than 2,500 respondents across ten EU countries. The results confirm that over 90% of consumers rely on online information sources such as reviews, product tests and retailer pages, yet the EPREL database and the QR codes on EU energy labels are barely used. When searching for products, consumers value completeness of information and filters most highly, followed by comparison functionalities and sorting by price, features or brand. Cost related and efficiency related criteria dominate purchase decisions for household appliances and heating systems, while purchase price prevails for consumer electronics. To close the gap between consumer interest and current online information, EPREL Services is building an integrated web application that links EPREL data with market, cost and availability information.

The second part presents concrete UX design patterns developed between October 2025 and May 2026 to promote energy efficiency in Switzerland. The patterns are freely available online as inspiration for UX designers and e-commerce decision-makers worldwide. The paper also reflects on the rise of agentic AI shopping, which will require online retailers to optimise for both human and machine readers.

The authors argue that regulators should consider making filters and lifetime cost calculators mandatory in the online market.