Sharing is the New Buying, Winning in the Collaborative Economy

For those new to the term, the collaborative economy is a powerful, if nascent, movement in which people are getting the things from each other, it's a combination of trends like the sharing economy, maker movement, and co-innovation. That means that people go to a site like LendingClub to get funding for their new project, rather than a traditional bank. Or, they may go to a site like Etsy or Shapeways to get custom made goods, or go to a site like eBay to buy pre-owned goods, instead of buying new products from retailers. In each of these cases, the crowd is self-empowered to get what they need from each other. But while the collaborative economy is poised to disrupt many industries, there is remarkably little data on how many people participate in sharing and making, who they are, and, most importantly, why they do it. Our report paints a picture of the sharers in the collaborative economy and provides important recommendations for businesses that want to win in this new economy. The Largest Study of the Collaborative Economy By engaging 90,112 people in the US, Canada and the UK, we uncovered three distinct types of people who participate in the collaborative economy: Re-sharers: Those who buy and/or sell pre-owned goods online (for example, on Craigslist or eBay), but have not yet ventured into other kinds of sharing. Neo-sharers: People who use the newer generation of sharing sites and apps, like Etsy, TaskRabbit, Uber, Airbnb and KickStarter. Non-sharers: People who have yet to engage in the collaborative economy. Although many of these non-sharers intend to try sharing services (in particular, re-sharing sites like eBay) in the next 12 months. Request Free!