The Digital World Enables Sharing of Physical Goods

The Digital World Enables Sharing of Physical Goods

The Internet has changed the way the world works in a number of ways. Many of these changes resulting from its ability to facilitate communication amongst strangers. Commerce, dating, job hunts and fan clubs have all benefited greatly from this effect. One of the more recent developments is the rise of shared goods, which is a component of the shift from ownership to access that is also represented by subscription media services such as Netflix as well as shared good concepts such as ZipCar.

ZipCar has become a huge success thanks to a combination of declining economic conditions and increased cultural acceptance of interactions with strangers. The company was started 12 years ago and now manages a network of over 6,500 vehicles in 71 North American towns and cities that users can borrow by appointment. ZipCar went public in April and its shares rose in value 35% during the past month. The company is symptomatic of larger shifts in culture, such as an increased value being placed on community, economy and sustainability. Rachel Botsman, co-author of What’s Mine is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption, found that people who share information or media online also share various things offline, making them significantly more likely to share in the physical world than people who don’t share digitally. Botsman also found that people regularly share other physical goods such as food (57%), household items and appliances (53%) and apparel (50%).

ShareMySpot serves as an example of how direct sharing between consumers is of growing importance in our culture. It is a start-up based in France that allows users to share their parking space with others and take advantage of the parking spots of users on the network. The service centers around a mobile application that facilitates this sharing, allowing users to search for spots and make decisions on the go. ShareMySpot goes a step further than ZipCar by helping consumers share directly with each other rather than letting them share company-owned goods.

Couchsurfing, a phenomenon where people around the world arrange to stay with strangers when they travel, also sheds some light on the future of sharable products. There are several couchsurfing websites that aid in coordinating these trips and the trend is running particularly strong in India, where the couchsurfing community is over 34,000 strong.

So, how can marketers take advantage of this shifting cultural climate? Depending on a brand’s business model, it could make sense to build in features that facilitate real-world sharing or to provide a service that helps users arrange for sharing amongst themselves in a model similar to that of ShareMySpot. Conversely, if a sharing model does not make sense a brand might consider how to create value in products that make it worth buying them rather than borrowing. The film industry, which has suffered from the cultural shift from ownership to access, incentivizes ownership by inserting special behind-the-scenes features only in DVDs that are sold to consumers and not in discs supplied to Netflix or in digital files that are streamed over the internet. Manufacturers of physical goods could attempt to create the same effect by including features or peripherals that are custom-fit to the buyer and therefore less useful to someone else who borrows the item. Whatever course of action they decide to take, brands should embrace these cultural shifts by adding incentives to either share or purchase, depending on the product.

Greg Steen, 05.31.2011