Romanian Consumers’ Perception on Carpooling Phenomena – A Successful Example of Collaborative Consumption

Abstract

Sharing economy represent a complex concept that is intensively debated in the last decade. Proposes an economic model based on collaborative consumption and four different layers: circulation of goods, increased utilization of durable assets, exchange of services, and sharing of productive assets. The present article wants to investigate how Romanian consumers relate to a carpooling application - BlaBlaCar. Consumer perceptions are measured in a quantitative research as an online field survey addressed to users of the BlaBlaCar platform who have completed at least 3 trips in the past 2 months. The results of the research are discussed and analyzed not only from the point of view of factors that are determining the consumption decision for this kind of services but from the point of view of future implications regarding consumption social models and the development of sharing economy and collaborative consumption within the context of Romanian economy. The findings are showing that a large part of educated, young and middle age consumers from the urban area with medium to large incomes are embracing on a wide scale a new model of consumption, which is characterized by the sharing of resources, intense social engagement and a new type of free transactions.

Keywords

• collaborative consumption
• carpooling
• consumption behavior
• sharing economy