Peek at the world — #SharingEconomy by Country
The global economy landscape is changing. Multinational companies and small business alike are shifting from a massive production standards to access mechanisms where providers and consumer live together. That only means good things. Disrupting the status quo can only bring benefit to the less rich or less resourceful population. But this actually happens in different fashions, depending on a strong factor: cultural diversity.
Every region and country within parts of the world have a unique way of perceiving the economy and community notions. These perceptions are key to develop a trading system. Therefore, each culture is liable to develop and customize their own experience of the sharing economy trend.
We will dive a bit into some of the countries with a higher grade of sharing economy culture development, to see their motives and expectations.
US
The sharing economy picture in US is fathered in Silicon Valley. Companies like Uber, Airbnb, Taskrabbit, etc have their offices here. Maybe is the fact that most millennials are now in the workforce, looking towards a ‘millennial’ way to do things (least amount of effort possible, greatest reward) that has impulsed all these new marketplaces in the East Coast of US. Now, it has been time to this solutions to go mainstream, and the challenge still high: around 50% Americans have listen something about Sharing Economy (and a great number of these people probably haven’t even experienced it… but just whatever the media or word of mouth feed them). Of the people who have used gig economy applications, only 20% says confidently to be trusting of all the parts involved in the transactions. The rest of them (an astonishing 80%) still have their doubts about the efficacy of the system.
Talking about making money in the sharing economy, only less than 10% of US populations has served as provider for any platform (around 50% of them in the ages between 25 to 45 years old). It does make sense since this might be the range of population nowadays where at least have assets to share (house or cars), and would like to get rid of debt somehow (maybe specially for those assets they are trading).
EUROPE
Europe case of the sharing economy is quite a paint. Apparently is in the nature of European people to be avant-garde when new trends come along. No different case with sharing economy.
UK has done some massive efforts to support the gig collaboration. From idle government places being available for rent as event venues or working spaces, to first class kite mark to reward companies where users and providers have met great behaviors standards and therefore ratings are in the up of the bunch. UK has widely open the doors to this #newconomy, probably recognizing its value for a land where space per head in large cities diminishes everyday a bit more.
Amsterdam, in Holland, has been called one of the most shareable cities in the world. Aside form having same kind of initiatives as UK where government will use its idle rooms to hold events for people, it has made enormous efforts to homologate different startups to help elderly and low income people with affordable products or services (Stadspas is the initiative to do so, with startups like Thuisafgehaald for food sharing and Peerby for equipment sharing).
Other parts of Europe are showing clear signs of adoption of the sharing economy model. An average of more than 20% of people in Europe think their participation in the gig economy will increase in the years to come, probably leveraged in the good experiences and publicity the now godfathers of the industry are excelling around the globe.
From the provider point of view, Europe market is one to improve in terms of amount of money earned. Vast majority of people is making less than €500 per year. Just a few bunch are making some serious cash in the accommodation market. The penetration of sharing economy and the use of everyday joes will make the numbers grow on the volume.
ASIA
Asia markets are a particular bunch in the new concept of sharing economy. This is due to the culture strength that is usually found in this part of the world. Apparently, it is a less individualistic more community centrist culture where sharing is even done before the upcoming of the #newconomy. Also, the amount of people per square meter in these places is pushing for new solutions to ease issues with transportation, accommodation, etc.
India is a country with an enormous number of people. We all know that. Internet penetration maybe now around the low twenties percent, and e-commerce retails might move around $10B per year. It is indeed a young market compared to develop countries. This means opportunity. This has been well understood by Uber and it amazing proposed $1B investment in this country, to try and take over a local loved, Ola (valuated around $3.5B).
Another interesting fact about India is how sharing economy thinkers are taking advantage of the vast economical power of the rural countryside: EM3 is a sharing economy platform matching farmers with owners of tech machinery for harvesting. This will certainly impulse India’s GDP aside from urban trading.
China, also big in numbers: more than $500B in sharing economy transactions, 600M people involved, growing GDP in China about 10% by 2020. Impressive. Really. Why is this? That’s the big question…
This country’s sharing economy is driven by few established trends. Bikes is one of them. Mobike and Ofo are the fathers of bike sharing in China. Although more than 20 other companies offer bike-sharing services, these 2 have been evolving through great redesign of operations and products (like new featured bikes). The super rapid expansion has led to think of unsustainable business, but it is still there. Maybe people do use bikes more than cars in certain scenarios and places, just by culture acceptance or convenience? Time is to tell.
Ride-sharing companies are other major player. Well, I should say company:
Didi Chuxing acquired Uber China and now it is the larges ride-sharing company in the world. It took one year to go over 1.4B rides (Uber took 6 years to hit this mark).
In summary, Chinese sharing economy business people would share just about anything: street commodities (like basketballs, stools, phone battery packs and electric cars) to accommodation pods (yes, pods. Literally to fit a person to sleep). It sounds a bit to crowded, but does solve the problem of lack of space in main cities.
AUSTRALIA
It is just logical I write about my home town.
Australia strikes me as a very capitalist environment. Inclusion of people from all over the world (specially Asians) makes this a multicultural environment. Locals and foreign alike do spend money in all aspects of commerce, therefore Australia thrives as a cash flow kind of positive country. Being capitalist and spending money has it up side as well for the sharing economy: 2/3 of Australians use gig economy. More than 50% of people.
That is huge!!!
Part due to old established users of e-commerce platforms like eBay, and new users of recently grown behemoths AirBnB and Uber, and more alike. We even have an index to measure the use and people’s attitude towards sharing economy: It is called SETI (Sharing Economy Trust Index). It states that currently around 60% of working Australian population will earn money through this new ecosystem. From last 2 years, it has grown to around a billion per year, and it is foreseen to grow nearly 4 times by 2020. This means only one thing: People are using it. People are adopting the sharing economy as an alternative to be serve or produce extra income.
Not everything is rainbows in here tho. Tax implications and lack of regulations are some of the pains Australians are going through when embracing the sharing economy. Due to the population growth this country is foretasted to experiment in the coming years, along with the fact of ICT expanding at an extraordinary rate, it is just a matter of time before law makers realize the potential, and help shape marketplaces in this #newconomy.
We have seen the different aspects of sharing economy along some of the countries more inspired by it. The common ground is very clear: More and more people are seeing this new trend as an opportunity to engage in trading activities different than their own, simple enough to repeat and make some extra bucks out of it. Technology is there and marketplaces are certainly taking root in the minds of everyday people to stay, and help.
Although the future is very promising, there are some challenges each of this countries need to address in order to thrive in this #newconomy dynamics.
In the US, the migration from early adopters to mainstream users of established companies from Silicon Valley to other parts of the Americas bring up challenges of adaptation and evolution. These companies need to have products which are suitable to serve a greater purpose to providers (so they can enroll more of them, massively), and give great experiences to users (getting the word around more, not only relying on people who have used it to tell new users what the experience is like).
In Europe, and Australia actually, policy making and regulatory issues are meant to be the greatest challenges. According to Europeans, technology is an empowering tool for mainstream people to engage in trading activities otherwise not reachable. This is a play premise for them. They have had summits with sharing economy representatives to set approaches and work plans on how regulation and policy makers are key in making safe decision to including insurances and fair play for sharing economy service providers, not braking the play premise.
Asia has a more social challenge to solve: environmental consequences of mass production goods to flood sharing economy markets. It is know the rate at which Asian countries used to raise their population, and the measurements taken by governments to restrict this situation. Situation which was itself causing major issues of sustainability, affecting country development. Now, with the gig economy bringing innovative ways of serving people, cultural understanding vouch for a way to ‘feed all’, where environmental impacts take place when replacing common mass production problems (CO2 emission for example), with others (over supply of bikes, just to cater for more market share). It will be very interesting how these notions evolve in Asian countries to favor the sharing economy purpose without deteriorating region culture.
Let see what the river brings along… hopefully all of this rough edges can be sharpen and the extraordinary concept of sharing economy can be spread out to all parts of the world.
