Open Shed shows power of collaborative consumption

Collaborative Consumption is on the rise. Lisa Fox, CEO of online peer-to-peer rental platform Open Shed, shares her success with the movement and what it can offer you.

I first heard the term Collaborative Consumption in December 2010 when I listened to Rachel Botsman’s Sydney TEDx talk, The Case for Collaborative Consumption. It was a talk that changed my life. That may sound a little dramatic but it really did. Just four months later, in March 2011, my partner Duncan and I quit our jobs to start creating our own collaborative consumption business, Open Shed.

Collaborative Consumption is an umbrella term describing to the age old behaviours of sharing, bartering, gifting, swapping, renting which are now being revitalised by the internet. The efficiences created by the internet are taking these behaviours to a whole new scale. At the click of a search button individual wants and haves can now be matched.

The collaborative consumption movement was initially slow to build in Australia, however, in 2013 there are now a whole range of services available, many of which are listed in this very handy guide put together by City of Sydney and TimeOut.

My website, Open Shed is an online peer-to-peer rental platform. Think of it like eBay, but rather than buying and selling you are renting to each other. I was initially inspired to start Open Shed because it just made sense! Living in an apartment you become very conscious of the desire to simply access things when you need them, as opposed to owning, worrying about storage and space etc.

However, as our Open Shed journey has progressed over the last two years I have also developed a much deeper understanding of the power of the collaborative consumption movement and the importance it has to play in all our future social and working lives.

It is a potent movement that can empower us all to live the lives we want. Giving us flexibility to make the most of our assets – be that time (Airtasker), space (AirBnB), skills (Laneway Learning) or stuff (Open Shed). It also taps into our growing desires to be mindful and thrifty consumers; reduces our environmental footprint; and reconnects with the people around us.

Given all those positives we will all be drawn to collaborative consumption services for a different of reasons. It might be the most convient option or perhaps the cheapest, greenest or maybe it just sounded like fun to try!

This spring at Open Shed we are inviting you to think of sharing what you own, as a new mood enhancer. As University of Pennsylvania Professor Martin Seligman and author of Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being, explains “doing a kindness produces the single most reliable momentary increase in well-being of any exercise we have tested.” And with Open Shed’s new donate to charity feature you can get a double bang of well-being. Firstly, by listing your item for another person to rent you have helped them access what they need, rather than having to buy. Secondly, every dollar of your Open Shed rental fee that you select to donate to OzHarvest equals two meals they can provide to our most vulnerable and needy. What could be better than that!

Open Shed’s donate-to-charity feature for OzHarvest adds a dimension to what collaborative consumption already offers. It’s a great match between the two organisations, both are about doing something useful with excess stuff and having real-world impact.