Collaborative Consumption Takes Over

An emerging trend, the idea of “sharing economy”, otherwise known as collaborative consumption, will greatly impact the society in which we live. As consumers, businesses and companies move away from private ownership of assets, we are slowly moving towards sharing assets.

What exactly is collaborative consumption? According to collaborative lab, collaborative consumption is an economic model based on sharing, swapping, trading or renting products and services, enabling access over ownership. It is reinventing not just what we consume but HOW we consumer.

Many established brands are implementing this model into the structure of their business, taking on a collaborative lifestyle. A prime example would include Airbnb, where global consumers have the opportunity to reinvent the idea of sharing through renting out their homes and apartments, giving world travellers the opportunity to “belong anywhere”.

Another prime example would be eBay, in which their use of collaborative consumption can be seen through the redistribution or “transfer or ownership” of new and pre-owned goods. Lastly, the third main form of collaborative consumption can be seen through the idea of a product service system such as Zipcar, where consumers pay to access the benefit of a product versus needing to own it outright.

A key driver pushing the growth of collaborative consumption is the ever-evolving Internet, and the many technological platforms, along with the multitude of social media channels that are becoming easier and easier to use. From this we can see the introduction of more “share platforms” that allow consumers to share things from the click of a button.

Perhaps another driver impacting the move towards a shared economy could be peoples' need to connect with others in a meaningful way. This idea of sharing goods and services is not new. Many of us can trace the use of borrowed tools and equipment, hand-me-down clothes and shared babysitters back to our parents and even our grandparent’s generation. The only difference is that this is the first time that we can see a joint shift in consumption patterns, ones that have very little to do with marketing or retail accessibility.

If we were to sit back and try to predict where consumers and their consumption patterns are going, the simple answer would be “they are taking the consumption model into their own hands and controlling when, how and why.”

Lauren Musat
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School