Realising-consumer-rights

Figure 6: What could a new intermediary service ever do for us
Undertake rigorous, whole-market search and switching in sectors
we find baffling, or have neither the time nor inclination to engage
with. The intermediary can analyse our usage pattern to establish our
actual need from a product or service and search the market to find the
product that best meets our need.
• Aggregate and co-ordinate demand for a product or service to either
stimulate competition among retailers, or, in some markets, bypass
retailers and unlock access to wholesale pricing with the economy of
scale achieved.
• Enable us to access and add to fellow consumers’ verified feedback
on a range of good services, in order to inform a purchasing decision.
• Gather and guard your personal data in a ‘locker’, enabling you
and third party intermediaries approved by you to interrogate that
data for insight and then exploit that data on your terms and to
your benefit, as opposed to the status quo arrangement of being
exploited for it.
• Support ‘collaborative consumption’ 52 by establishing and facilitating
marketplaces or fora where consumers can trade, rent and share any
assets we have that represent spare capacity (products, time, money,
living space etc.)
One only need consider how the consumer experience of the travel
industry has been transformed by these trends in the past decade to
see that the impact of new disruptive intermediaries on mainstream
conventional providers.
Like everything, the picture is complex, the mainstream has endured many
different technological, social and economic changes, and many may feel
more than ready for the challenge of disruption, or, invoke strategies to
hold onto consumers which may cause other detriment. And, let’s not
forget that the first round of disruptive intermediaries like Amazon, have
now become the new mainstream, exerting large amounts of control over
markets. How the next generation of intermediaries will progress will be
something that those wanting to further the consumer interest will need
to watch.
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What’s mine is yours: how collaborative consumption is changing the way we live, Botsman,
R and Rogers, R 2011
Realising consumer rights
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