Collaborative consumption is the group's shared use of a product or service. In regular consumption, one individual pays the full cost of a good and keeps exclusive access to it, but in collaborative consumption, numerous individuals have access to and bear the cost of the good. A common example is ridesharing, in which numerous individuals, not just the car's owner, have access to and pay for transportation.

Use instead of own, rent instead of buy - collaborative consumption builds on the trend that consumers value access to a good more than ownership. Using network technologies communities start to do more with less. Think about your offering, how can renting, lending, swapping, bartering, gifting or sharing improve the value of your product?

When and how to apply collaborative consumption:

Consumption in collaboration is a form of sharing. Peer-to-peer renting, for instance, has been practiced for thousands of years and provides a group of persons with an asset without forcing each individual to acquire it individually. It enables consumers to access the resources they require while also enabling them to contribute the resources that others require but are underutilized.

Because individuals rent out their underutilized assets, collaborative consumption is considered a component of the sharing economy. When the price of a certain asset, such as a car, is high and the asset is not always utilized by a single person, this strategy is most likely to be employed. By renting out a non-utilized asset, the owner transforms the asset into a sort of commodity. This creates a situation in which physical objects are considered services.

Airbnb, for instance, has developed an internet platform that enables owners of homes, apartments, and other residences to lease or rent their space to others. This may be the case for properties that the owner resides in only part-time or during extended periods of absence. Individual tenants may not be able to afford such a dwelling, but when the costs are divided among numerous renters who utilize the property at different times, the residence becomes cheap.

Well-known companies that use this pattern are Wikipedia and YouTube.