Sharing Is The New Buying

The Collaborative Economy Movement is changing business as we know it.

For those unfamiliar with the term, the collaborative economy is where people are funding, making and sharing with each other rather than buying from corporations a combination of trends like the sharing economy, maker movement and co-innovation.

For example, people go to sites such as Lendingclub or Kickstarter to get funding for a new project rather than the good old fashioned way of going to a bank to apply for a loan.

For custom made goods they would go to sites such as Etsy and for pre-owned goods, they would visit Ebay rather than buying (and paying full price) for new goods from retailers.

A report put together byJeremiah Owyang for the Web Strategistengaged 90,112 people in the US, Canada and UK and discovered 3 types of people who participate in the collaborative economy:

• Re-sharers: The ones who buy/sell pre-owned goods online but haven’t ventured into any other types of sharing.
• Neo-sharers: People who use and are au fait with the new generation of sharing sites/apps such as Etsy, Airbnb & Kickstarter etc.
• Non-Sharers: People who have yet to venture into the collaborative economy. Although many of the non-sharers intend to try one of these services (particularly re-sharing sites like Ebay) in the next 12 months so watch this space...

For full report, see here. 

Photo (cc) Alan Levine.