Interact for Collaborative Consumption

Who stops at the car wash before returning a rental car? Anybody? So why were the Northeastern University and Suffolk University researchers surprised by the attitudes of Zipcar program participants? More important for our purposes, what do the research findings say about your chances as a retailer to have a profitable collaborative consumption program?
     Zipcar is an international automobile sharing program targeted to students on college campuses and people in urban areas who are resigned to never finding convenient parking spaces. Zipcar members carry an access card which unlocks a car they’ve reserved. The car’s parked in a somewhat convenient location, and the ignition key is inside.
     Because of the paid membership requirement and nature of Zipcar marketing materials, some observers conceptualized Zipcar as collaborative consumption. This name for sharing merchandise is a cut above equipment rental: Collaborative consumption is supercharged by the opportunity to learn about other users.
     The Northeastern/Suffolk researchers found that Zipcar participants felt low sense of ownership of the cars or of the Zipcar program itself. There was little evidence of brand loyalty. The members want the company to strictly enforce the rules about filling the gas tank and returning the car on schedule, but at the same time find the strict enforcement estranges them from other members.
     Seeking both savings and social interaction, many people in your target markets do want to share both product usage and responsibility for product maintenance. There’s a market for collaborative consumption. To make it work, facilitate interaction among the participating consumers.

• If you don’t currently rent out merchandise, consider introducing rentals as a service to the community and as a source of income for your business. If you do currently rent out merchandise, rethink the most profitable ways to use that rental center as a place shoppers can try out products and then have an opportunity to purchase a used or new version. 
• Encourage each customer to share product ratings with others on your store’s internet site, via the customers’ social media services, and through the old-fashioned, but highly powerful, medium of talking with others. 
• For high-ticket items that might be used less than frequently, invite friends to make a group purchase. Yes, you’d prefer to sell three items rather than sell one. But with consumers’ current price sensitivity and anti-waste commitment, it might be a matter of you preferring to sell one item rather than sell none. 

For your profitability: Sell Well: What Really Moves Your Shoppers

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Collaborative Consumption is Coming 
Set Unreasonable Goals Subject to Revision