Millennials and collaborative consumption on online consumer-to-consumer platforms, Motivations, practices and effects on buying behavior, Case Tori.fi

Collaborative consumption, a subcategory of the sharing economy, has increased in popularity amongst consumers and scholars during the recent years. The terminology is disputed, but in simple terms it depicts consumption that occurs amongst consumers with little to no help from companies. The essence of it is that consumers need to collaborate with each other in order to consume. Redistribution markets, where collaborative consumption often occurs, have momentum due to their expected ecological and economic benefits. Simultaneously, the generation of millennials, including people born between the 1980’s and the beginning of the 21st century, have grown up and gained tremendous buying power. The generation has a noticeable stake in defining the future of consumption in an era with unparalleled pressure to alter it to suit our environmental resources. This master’s thesis studies why and how millennials participate in collaborative consumption on online consumer-to-consumer platforms. Concurrently, the effects this has on millennials’ buying behaviour are studied. The project is conducted in cooperation with the largest consumer-to-consumer platform in Finland, Tori.fi. A survey based on an extensive literature review was sent to over a hundred thousand of its active customers. This resulted in 4565 responses and a sample that demographically corresponds well to the Finnish population. The results indicate that most of the millennials are motivated to participate in collaborative consumption strongly by sustainability and simultaneously somewhat by frugality. There are also other meaningful motivators, but millennials differ more on them. As expected, millennials are technically competent and use the internet to be social, which have a positive influence on their participation in collaborative consumption. Whilst taking part in collaborative consumption, the respondents mostly buy and sell. Thus, even though the access-based ways of consumption have received plenty of attention in the academia, collaborative consumption still seems to be centred on ownership. When it comes to the impact of collaborative consumption on millennials’ buying behaviour, effects both inside and outside of it were observed. For instance, it can evoke impulse buying and reduce cognitive dissonance regarding sustainability. The findings signify the potential of collaborative consumption and the importance of providing suitable platforms for it. Due to both the novelty and the magnitude of the phenomenon as well as the research on it, there are significant possibilities for future research. For instance, a similar study could be conducted with a sample collected from people who are not active in collaborative consumption. It would be valuable to know why they do not participate in it and what would motivate them to do so. Also, studying the phenomenon in other countries would be significant