Share and Borrow – A New Business Trend?
A manufacturing trend to produce fair priced products that break after a short period of use started in late 1980s. That trend allowed manufacturers to save on quality, attract customers by low prices, and generate recurring needs to repurchase. Not surprisingly, the majority of consumers felt deceived by this approach and never returned to the same manufacturer again. Recent studies confirmed that today’s consumers would rather share and borrow high quality products than own medium or low quality ones. The public opinion analysis survey of the European Commission conducted in 2001 identified that 72% of Austrians are willing to buy second-hand products. The same is true in many other countries and the number of on-line tools designed for exchange of goods is growing rapidly on a global scale. A research conducted at Harokopio University in Greece in 2010 identified that all surveyed respondents occasionally reused, reduced, and recycled, and more than 50% did it regularly. Concep...