Global Sharing Week: Welcome To The World Of We-Commerce
What more evidence do we need of the permanence and continued projected growth of the collaborative economy than global sharing week?!
The celebration, which runs from June 5-11, will connect communities across the globe to share resources, create collaborative projects, and bolster commons-based initiatives. That includes hosting food swaps, civic hackathons, and discussions on the intersection of technology and the cooperative movement.
The global fete just validates the collaborative economy’s growth, which PwC anticipates to be $335 billion by 2025.
The firm did a study which surveyed 1000 consumers and validated the movement’s momentum: 44 percent of those surveyed had heard of the sharing economy. Those questioned felt overwhelmingly positive about it, supporting the thesis that tech’s sharing economy would play a bigger role across the rest of the economy.
Here’s a snapshot of the other highlights:
- 43 percent of consumers expressed that owning today feels like a burden
- 72 percent say they could see themselves becoming a sharing economy consumer
- 83 percent agree it makes life more convenient and efficient
- 78 percent said that within the next 30 years they’re going to be working multiple jobs
- 59 percent said they will not trust sharing economy businesses until they are properly regulated
- 69 percent will not trust sharing economy companies until they are recommended by someone they trust.
These numbers come as no surprise as the collaborative economy movement builds steam in pockets of culture across the globe and go way beyond Uber and Airbnb. A great example is the growing Little Free Libraries platform that began in 2015.
Whether shaped like a house, a boat, a train, a barn, a phone booth, a VW bus, a school, or countless other designs, Little Free Libraries are becoming fixtures in neighborhoods around the world. In fact, there are now over 25,000 of them in 70 countries.
Riffing on the thriving Little Free Library movement, one woman in Fayetteville, Arkansas started the first Little Free Pantry just last week.
Jessica McClard’s idea is simple: rather than leaving or taking a book, people leave and take non-perishable food and household goods, including toothpaste, garbage bags, deodorant and toilet paper. Those with surplus supplies leave them and those in need are welcome to take them.
The project is brand new and gauging its ongoing success will take time, but support for the pantry was immediate. On its first day, the Little Free Pantry Facebook Page received more than 800 “likes.”
All of this news paired with the traditionally staunch EU commission supporting the sharing economy just last week, warning that they are against cracking down on businesses that help ordinary people offer services to the public, demonstrates at multiple touch points in global culture, that the age of collaboration has only just begun. https://www.
Three cheers for more proof that we are living in a world that is increasingly supporting the we over the me. Welcome to the world of We-Commerce. Happy global sharing week everybody!
Billee Howard is Founder + Chief Engagement Officer of Brandthropologie, a cutting edge communications collective specializing in helping organizations and individuals to produce innovative, creative and passionate dialogues with target communities, consumers and employees, while blazing a trail toward new models of artful, responsible, and sustainable business success. Billee is a veteran communications executive in brand development, trend forecasting, strategic media relations, and C-suite executive positioning. She has a book dedicated to the study of the sharing economy called WeCommerce released in December 2015 as well as a blog entitled the #HouseofWe dedicated to curating the trends driving our economy forward. She is also a regular contributor to Forbes on the topics of marketing, storytelling and the collaborative economy.
