How you too can share in the gains of the sharing economy

It’s hard to miss what’s called the sharing economy. New business such as  ‘ride sharing’ services like Uber which are upsetting traditional taxis as well as the ‘peer-to-peer lenders’ promising to disrupt banks.

Well-known brand names  such as Airbnb and eBay are involved in this movement but ordinary consumers, especially over fifties, need not just ask ‘ How do I get a slice of the action?’ because we are all a part of the action.

Many members are already getting extra cash by ‘sharing’ spare rooms through online platforms, hiring their cars when they are not using them and even parking spare cash with the new lenders which offer better rates than the banks.

So how best to make use of these new ideas, which use information technology to build trust between strangers and allow the exchange of various often bargain goods and services, and even profit from them?

Sharing is something we all learned as kids, through many arguments, which brought benefits to both sides. This new version sees businesses, individuals, community groups and even governments make use of each other’s’ spare capacity in goods and services and put it to good use.

Use your car only eight percent of the week? No problem rent it out to neighbours on an online car sharing scheme such as Carnextdoor.com.au. Have a spare room in your home? Join Airbnb and become a small scale hotelier. What about that ladder or other tools in the basement? You can hire them out by the hour.

The big difference between lending toys to your sister and lending your car to a stranger is trust and reducing the risk you’ll get it back in little pieces. So the true work of many of these schemes is not just connecting those with wants to those with the ability to satisfy them but also building trust between the parties.

And incredibly it seems to work. The various rating and review systems give you as both the consumer and producer of the good or service the chance to see how others assess who you’re doing business with.

With Airbnb you might not be hired a room if your rating as a room hirer doesn’t come up to scratch. Another interesting example is peer-to-peer lending which matches those with money to invest to those who need to borrow. Providers include societyone.com.au, ratesetter.com.au and others.

You can click here to see the Club's current offer with SocietyOne, which closes next week.

Banks’ multiple layers, policies and costly branch networks mean it can be slow, costly and sometimes nigh impossible to get a loan out of them. The new lenders have a much lower cost structure and use algorithms to connect the parties by offering higher deposit rates and lower lending rates.

The trust and risk elements are managed by using borrowers’ credit scores, which you can now easily access online and for free, to assess their likelihood to repay. In addition any investors’ funds are not just lent to one person they are divided into small packages and lent to many to spread the risk of any default.

The best way to check out these new ways of doing business, and there are many of them, is to use and understand them better. In this way you’ll find out what suits you best, be connected to a community who’ll have plenty of ideas and maybe inspire you to join in.

The costs, risks and time commitment are generally low and the rewards for the committed can be considerable and for some life-changing, see the growth of eBay millionaires in often modest suburbs.

At its simplest try out the ride-sharing services such as Uber or GoCatch. You can download the apps onto your mobile and quickly be ordering a car which may be cheaper, quicker and even smarter than your average taxi.

We are at the beginning of a revolution and who knows where it might take us but the ability to turn underused assets, be they a car or a room, into money by letting reliable and accountable strangers use them is an enticing one.

And talking about sharing it was wonderful to join a table of FiftyUp members at the fund raising lunch for radio and TV celebrity and super spruiker Glenn Wheeler.

Glenn was badly injured in a road smash and must have been well helped on his recovery by the well wishes of some 800 supporters at the Sydney event.

It was good to hear direct from some members about their enthusiasm and ambitions for the club and more power to all of you.