When The 'Sharing Economy' Turns Into The 'Missing Or Stolen Economy'

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the anybody-seen-my-300,000-umbrellas-lying-around? dept

The sharing economy — actually better-described as a rental economy — is very much in vogue, inspired by the high-profile examples of Airbnb and Uber. But Western enthusiasm pales in comparison to that of Chinese entrepreneurs, who seem to have taken the view that the model will work for anything. For example, alongside the companies that rent out homes and cars, there are now some that will let you pick up an umbrella in a public spot, use it for a short while, and then return it. At least, that’s the theory. But the South China Morning Post reports that the Sharing E Umbrella startup ran into a few problems:

Just weeks after making 300,000 brollies available to the public via a rental scheme, Sharing E Umbrella announced that most of them had gone missing, news website Thepaper.cn reported on Thursday.

The company was launched back in April, and is operating in 11 Chinese cities. Customers borrow umbrellas after paying a deposit of about $3, and a fee of 10 cents for every 30 minutes. Undeterred by the fact that each missing umbrella represents a loss of $9, the company’s founder says he hopes to proceed on a larger scale by making 30 million of them available across the country by the end of the year. Here’s why he’s convinced he’s on to a winner:

After seeing the launch of bike-sharing schemes across the country, the Shenzhen-based businessman said he “thought that everything on the street can now be shared”.

Perhaps he should have waited a little before modelling his business on bike sharing. Caixin reported last month that Wukong, one of the smaller players in this crowded market, has just closed down — after most of its bikes went missing:

Wukong operated its 1,200 bikes in the southwestern city of Chongqing. But most of the bikes were lost because the firm didn’t embed GPS devices in the vehicles. By the time the company decided the devices were necessary, it had run out of money and failed to raise more

Wukong isn’t the only rental company that lost track of most of its bikes, as Shanghaiist.com notes:

Wu Shenghua founded Beijing-based 3Vbike in February, using 600,000 RMB ($89,000) of his own money to purchase the first 1,000 bikes. But only four months later, he told the Legal Evening News that there were only dozens left.

Despite those failures, money continues to pour into the Chinese bicycle rental sector: last month, one of the leading startups, Mobike, announced $600 million in new funding, which it will use it to expand outside China. Let’s hope people there remember to bring the bikes back.

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Filed Under: bikes, cars, china, sharing economy, theft, tracking