With the increased cost of living and a shift towards more minimal lifestyles, this has led to a growth in the goods-sharing economy. Goods that are highly shared are usually items with a high market value and is not fully utilised all the time - such goods include furniture, appliances, professional cameras, specific hardware tools, and even medical equipment.
Sharing of goods is not something that is happening only today - it has been around for centuries. There are many kinds of second-hand shops - consignment stores, pawn shops and thrift stores. There are also many platforms to encourage the sharing of goods - flea markets, garage sales, online marketplaces and physical thrift stores.
A type of thrift store is Goodwill. Goodwill was founded in 1902 by an early social innovator, Rev. Edgar J. Helms. He collected used household items and clothing that were unwanted by wealthier areas in Boston. He trained and hired poorer people to repair these goods - the repaired goods were then either resold, or given to these people.
Thrift stores such as The Salvation Army, Goodwill and Savers encourage people do do good by donating their used and unwanted goods to the less fortunate. A fraction of the store's annual income would be then donated to charities. Initially when thrift stores first started out, they attracted usually the lower income families who are unable to afford full priced retail items in stores.
However, with today's fast fashion trends and an overall thriftier society, an increasing number of people are turning to shopping at thrift stores for products. Social media sites such as Youtube has helped encourage more people to start looking for gems in thrift stores. In the Youtube community, there are many content creators who have the ability to encourage their viewers to change their views. Recently, fashion trends are more geared towards reinventing trends set in the 1980s and 1990s - thus, people are able to find better and cheaper deals shopping at thrift stores rather than the commercial retail stores that would usually charge exorbitant prices.
Apart from thrift stores, online markets such as eBay has encouraged people to sell or trade their secondhand items. Carousell, a peer-to-peer Singapore founded lifestyle mobile application that encourages people to sell their secondhand and pre-loved goods is also increasingly popular not only to millennials, but also to the older tech savvy generation. People are selling items such as textbooks, kitchen appliances, electronic devices, vintage and antiques and even automobiles.
However, there are issues that arise when people sell their secondhand items. The most important question people have when they purchase or loan these secondhand goods would be the durability of the product. Especially on an online platform, users would not be able to judge the quality and condition of the goods when the transaction is being done online. There would be great risks when purchasing secondhand goods online as we cannot guarantee that it would be in a good working condition. Would it be worth it spending slightly less for a product that would likely break down in a couple of months?
In terms of shared medical equipment (sharing of medical equipment between institutions), there would also be an issue of urgency. Hospitals and clinics may result in sharing of medical equipment because they are extremely costly to purchase. However, if both institutions need to use the same equipment at the same time, there may be issues regarding who gets to use it first - this can potentially lead to longer waiting times and reduced efficiency of such institutions.
Shared goods does have its benefits to society in terms of less waste generated and a more efficient allocation of resources. However, we have to be mindful of the potential drawbacks that shared goods entails such that we are able to minimise potential issues to ensure long term sustainability of the system.
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