There is a new market opportunity on the rise that has retailers and brands rethinking their business models. It’s called “Collaborative Economy,” a term used to describe “an economic model that leverages communities or crowds to rent, share, swap, barter, trade, or sell access to products or services.” (http://www.collaborative
economycoalition.org/
what-is-the-collaborative-economy/)
Ever heard of eBay? AirBnB? Zip Car? Those are some of the Collaborative Economy pioneers changing the retail world as we know it.

Why is this something all major retailers need to get on board with? According to Jeremiah Owyang’s research, an Industry Analyst at Altimeter group, 200+ startups who have amassed millions of users and over $2 billion of funding from VC’s, are facilitating this trend in retail. Consumers are finding new ways to reuse and renew products and services.  This essentially cuts the retailer out of the entire transaction and instead makes room for those businesses that are enabling this sharing. Jeremiah has divided this type of market into three distinct categories below:

The Three Categories of Collaborative Economy Markets
(http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2013/02/24/the-master-list-of-the-collaborative-economy-rent-and-trade-everything/)

Your consumers are becoming the retailers.  It is a movement that will be fueled by cost-saving opportunities to the consumer and a sustainable impact on the environment. This is where retail is headed and many brands are already starting to get on board. Below is a list of brands Jeremiah has identified as already  implementing programs to consider the Collaborative consumer:

Collaborative Economy: List of Brands and Corporations
(Jeremiah Owyang http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2013/02/26/collaborative-economy-brand-edition/)

1. BMW Drive NOW Premium Car Sharing by BMW i, Mini, and Sixt
2. Volkswagen Quicar Car Share by VW (Hanover)
3. Peugeot Mu Mobiliy Services Rentals
4. Daimler Car2Go Sponteneity on Wheels
5. RelayRides Uses OnStar technology
6. Toyota Rent a Car: Offers a wide range of cars to be rented, at dealer, Feb 2013
7. Barclays Cycle Hire: Barclays, a Financial Services firm offers Bike Share (2010?)
8. Radiohead gifts media, asking consumers to pay what they want, (2007) hat tip Nico Ibieta
9. Dodge Dart Registry:  Crowdfund your next car
10. Ford now was crowd sharing in Germany (submitted by Ford’s Scott Monty)
11. Walmart considers having customers ship their own products (Submitted by Joe Chernov)
12. Google rents Chromebooks for $30 (Submitted by Ned Boyajian)

Jeremiah Owyang will be presenting about his research on Collaborative Economy at the Digital Omni-Channel Shopper Marketing Summit, June 11-13 in San Francisco. He quotes,
“The Collaborative Economy is an unstoppable trend that brands must not avoid.  Consumers will act like retailers as they trade, rent, and borrow your products from each other –bypassing brands.”
Jeremiah plans to give his audience advice on
“How to take advantage of this movement and profit from it –not be disrupted from it.”

His speech will give a market interview, based on primary research, and forecast the future trends.  Most importantly, it will break down the specific opportunities for brands and give pragmatic advice on what to do to avoid being disrupted.

Interested in learning more about Collaborative Economy & shopper technology? Join Jeremiah Owyang from Altimeter, Microsoft, Google, Cisco, and more as they release the latest research and recommendations on reaching your shopper at the Digital Omni-Channel Shopper Marketing Summit.

Click here to register now or learn more about the conference
 

At last week’s Digital Marketing Summit, Forrester’s Dave Frankland (right) led a discussion about customer intelligence, that area many of us have been calling database marketing or CRM.  So, it’s great to see him follow up that appearance with a column in this week’s Ad Age on the same topic.

He writes:

But while some claim that the age of the left-brain marketer has arrived, too often we see customer data buried in the direct-marketing department, manipulated and modeled by propeller-heads to create a campaign file. And yet, in a small number of firms, we find customer intelligence elevated into a strategic command center for the business. In these firms, customer knowledge drives decisions across the enterprise — from marketing planning and strategy to product development, and from risk analysis and staffing to business operations and corporate strategy. And most of these firms point to a broad range of benefits, including improvements in customer acquisition, retention and satisfaction to increased revenue, profitability and customer lifetime value.

What defines these leading firms? They treat customer data as a strategic asset, put the customer at the center of all decision making and use data-driven insight to tailor all customer communications. It sounds simple, but can you name five companies that do it? Our research shows that fewer than 15% of firms have a strategic customer-intelligence operation. These firms leverage customer intelligence broadly throughout the organization, they value customer knowledge as a corporate asset and they frequently have an evangelist in the C-suite. They continually demonstrate that customer intelligence drives overall business growth.

For those of you who missed the Summit, Dave has graciously made his slides available:

You can read his full AdAge article here.