As web-based businesses like Uber and Airbnb carve out entirely new marketplaces online a Bendigo cooperative is hoping to start a sharing service for an entire town.
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The bHive Cooperative wants to develop its own mobile friendly website and applications to allow Bendigonians to trade or share goods, services and event information with each other.
Already, locals had invested $30,000 and bHive was speaking with a number of larger philanthropic organisations to raise $140,000 to build, test and launch the first applications.
bHive co-founder and director Ian McBurney said the internet was creating new ways for people to trade goods and services.
“In the past we went to institutions for goods and services. What’s happening across America and Europe is that people are going more towards a peer-to-peer model,” he said.
“There are people offering lifts, car sharing and goods.
“There’s actually people in the UK lending money to each other – it’s a sector that’s growing faster than banking.”
As the sharing economy boomed and companies rapidly expanded, bHive’s directors believed they had a three-year window to establish their cooperative before multi-million dollar operations began arriving in Bendigo “in force”.
Three months ago Uber was among the ride-share services to make its arrival in Bendigo and many locals had already flocked to local buy, swap and sell pages on Facebook.
While buy, swap and sell pages were popular, Mr McBurney said alternatives were emerging around the world.
That was partly because of some of the features Facebook lacked. Mr McBurney said it did not have a way for users to assess others’ reputation and its news feed allowed goods and services to quickly disappear.
Meanwhile, around the world people were experimenting with cooperative models in which members shared profits or benefits.
bHive was one such cooperative and was unique to Australia in that it focused its attention on a town and not just services.
“We are saying the Bendigo community should be able to build, operate and own our own peer-to-peer local economy,” Mr McBurney said.
“What we want to do is get money circulating locally. It doesn’t have to go out of (our town’s) circulation every time we buy a good or a service.”