Contents
Why do owners of supercars rent them out and in what way has Tallinn beaten Helsinki? What’s new in the sharing economy in the countries of the world and which cities have become the most advanced in the development of sharing services
Topic of the week: geography of sharing
In Miami, owners of luxury cars make money on sharing. Through a special MPH Club application, anyone can temporarily borrow, for example, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Ferrari or McLaren. The company claims to have many celebrities among its clients, such as NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal and boxer Floyd Mayweather. Technically, the business is organized as follows: the owner of a supercar leases it to MPH Club, the company keeps the car in its warehouse, organizes marketing and logistics, subleases the car to service customers and keeps part of the remuneration. The average check per day of rent is $1. The most expensive car in the MPH Club’s file cabinet, the Bugatti Veyron, is rented for $25 per day.
In the center of Copenhagen, the use of sharing electric scooters will be banned. The city authorities explain their decision by caring for elderly citizens who find it difficult to navigate through narrow streets lined with parked scooters. In addition, there are many violators among those who travel by microtransport – only for one weekend in the summer months, the police fined up to 28 people.
France will allocate €21 million to startups that will develop second-hand electronics. First of all, the authorities want to draw the attention of consumers to used smartphones in order to ultimately reduce the environmental impact of their production. Companies that repair and resell used electronics have long been seeking economic support from the state. For example, the Recommerce project is lobbying for VAT reduction on used devices. The rival startup Back Market has already enlisted the support of officials, which in the spring of 2020 received €120 million in investments to develop sales of used products from Sony, Apple, Samsung and Microsoft.
In China, public services have been hit hard by the lockdown. Now the business is finally returning to sharing schemes. Chinese electronics manufacturer Huawei in October 2020 tested laptop rental. During the week, brand stores in Beijing rented inexpensive Honor models. Meituan Dianping, a courier service that used to specialize only in food delivery, became Huawei’s logistics partner.
Airbnb for retail appeared in Kenya. Notify Logistics provides small online stores with the opportunity to place goods on the shelves of their network of outlets in the largest cities of the country and use them as delivery points. On the other hand, Notify Logistics offers individuals to buy shelf space in the store so that they can earn income from those who place their goods there. The owner of the retail space does not have to invest in the equipment and maintenance of the entire store. Notify Logistics, for its part, guarantees that the shelf will be occupied by the goods.
Quote of the week
“The new generation of parents has a much easier attitude towards the topic of joint consumption. They are not as obsessed with shopping as their predecessors: they calmly exchange clothes, go to second-hand stores, use carsharing, and even more often prefer not to buy a house, but to rent it, ”- Alexey Graudyn, Toyrent, a service for renting children’s goods Toyrent
How it works
How traditional retailers can stay competitive in the re-commerce era.
Millennials and Generation Z are becoming more and more aware of responsible consumption and therefore are showing interest in re-commerce. The pandemic has forced many to save, strengthening the position of resale and second-hand. As a result, what was once called frugality is now becoming mainstream. In addition, re-commerce is no longer associated with cheap and unnecessary products. Global resale platforms that specialize in premium brands and designer clothing like RealReal are demonstrating the success of this business model. And ultimately, the re-commerce scheme became a real threat to traditional retail. The head of Intelligence Node, a retail analytics platform, Sanjeev Sularia offers several strategies that traditional companies should implement to compete with resale:
Study of the week
Roskachestvo tested the convenience and security of 18 car sharing applications from the perspective of users. Specialists searched for and booked cars, made trips to different cities (in Moscow, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg and Volgograd), studied privacy policies and contracts. The leader in the totality of all criteria was the Yandex.Drive application, which two years ago occupied the penultimate place in a similar rating. Delimobil and BelkaCar retained their positions in the top three.
Convenience
- The Yandex.Drive, Delimobil and BelkaCar applications were recognized as the most functional and convenient. The fourth place was taken by the operator Cars7.
- In terms of ease and quality of navigation, Delimobil and Cars7 showed the best results.
- All services, except for YouDrive and Bumerang, prompt the user what documents he needs to prepare for registration.
- In all applications, except for Rentmee and Cars7, it is possible to call the support service.
Digital Security
- Not all applications allow you to set a login password: on Android, this is possible only in BelkaCar and Cars7, and on iOS in all tested services, except for Delimobil, YouDrive and Rentmee.
- Only YouDrive and Rentmee have the ability to delete an account in the application, customers of other operators need to contact support.
- The BelkaCar, Rentmee and Bumerang applications have a general instruction on the transfer of data to third parties for advertising purposes, but only Delimobil and Yandex.Drive have a detailed description of who gets access to user data.
Source: Roskachestvo
One line
- eBay will provide an authenticity guarantee for secondhand sneakers over $100 to compete with premium resale platforms.
- Asian coliving operator Hmlet has launched a furniture subscription service.
- MedCoShare co-working space for independent medical practitioners has opened in the USA.
Weekly Rating
The Consumer Choice Center, an international consumer protection organization, has released the first CCC Sharing Economy Index. Analysts studied how sharing models are being operated by businesses in 52 of the world’s most developed cities. The index takes into account the volume of sharing economy services available to consumers in these megacities, as well as the conditions for working with such projects and the specifics of local legislation.
Top 10 cities with the most affordable sharing services in 2020:
Tallinn opens this rating. In the Estonian capital, according to researchers, transport and housing sharing services enjoy the greatest freedom and have reached a high level of digitalization. Vilnius, Kyiv, Sao Paulo and Tbilisi are distinguished by the active development of carsharing. Tallinn and Kyiv received the highest score from analysts for the popularity of sports sharing applications.
Source: Consumer Choice Center
What to read
Billion Dollar Loser: The Epic Rise and Spectacular Fall of Adam Neumann and WeWork is published in October 2020 by New York Magazine Editor Reeves Wiedemann, Billion Dollar Loser: The Epic Rise and Spectacular Fall of Adam Neumann and WeWork. Reeves Wiedemann writes about the company’s rapid rise and precipitous collapse, culminating in a disastrous 2019 IPO and backlash against CEO Adam Neumann. In 2010, WeWork seemed poised to change office culture around the world. Adam Neumann, an immigrant who decided to get rich in the US, decided to convert the empty offices of New York into a space for freelancers. The network of co-working spaces attracted large investors and expanded at breakneck speed. But the billion-dollar injection failed to ensure the success of WeWork’s chaotic expansion.
What to see
Home-sharing platform Airbnb has launched a new series of online tours and activities. The company decided to support remote learners, whose opportunities to travel and explore the world today are severely limited. Scientists, public figures and celebrities were involved in the project. For example, actress Olivia Wilde is giving a masterclass in storytelling. And TV presenter Bill Nye talks about scientific discoveries. Attendees of other online Airbnb events can take a virtual tour of Sri Lanka, try out origami art in Japan, or spend a day in Paris. In total, the collection contains more than 75 programs from 20 countries of the world. You can see what such an excursion looks like on the Airbnb YouTube channel.
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