The circular economy has increasingly become mainstream in the attempt to address environmental concerns and manage and eliminate waste for the conservation of finite resources. Nevertheless, due to real-world complexities, the transition from a linear to a circular economy is neither straightforward nor smooth. Thus, a mix of linear and circular practices prevails globally. Through the exemplification of an illustrative real-time outdoor power product, this exploratory study aims to identify the practical challenges in transitioning to a circular economy. The findings of this study provide an indepth understanding for practitioners to consider and manage the challenges of the circular economy transition. Copyright (c) 2025 The Authors. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)