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The Trade Me of rentals? Ourthings rethinks the online marketplace

There’s a new marketplace on the block, which believes in the sentiment “sharing is caring” and it’s called Ourthings. A rental website which encourages communities and businesses to share wealth between them by renting out their goods.

The site has had 900 businesses around New Zealand get on board so far.

These include Boutique Bash, a Manawatu-based wedding and event hire store.

The site allows both people and businesses to loan out things in exchange for money, or to browse for something they want to use but don’t necessarily want to buy.

Ourthings founder and CEO Jamie Twigg says there’s been a massive shift in consumers’ attitudes towards a sharing economy.

“With everything happening in Greece and China people are going to start looking around their houses and garages and realise they have a huge amount of ‘things’ that they don’t want to sell but could still profit from,” he says.

He says the sharing economy is huge overseas, but New Zealand is behind the eight ball.

“We are ride-sharing with Uber and sharing accommodation through Airbnb, and now Ourthings provides a platform to share everyday objects like deck chairs or ladders,” he says.

“As people get used to sharing their home on airbnb, and their car on Uber, it seems natural that they’ll look to share their things too.”

The company wants to ease the damage caused by mass consumerism and the “buy and toss” cycle.

If people borrowed instead of bought one-time-use items, Ourthings believes the world would be a better and more sustainable place.

As well as every day users, businesses can use the site and get a free marketing platform, Twigg says.

“We want to do for rental what Trade Me did for selling. With no fees to list, any businesses that want to look at renting out items rather than selling them can do so easily without worrying about paying listing fees,” he says.

Users can enable a geo-location feature to see what’s up for grabs in their area or use the search box.

The terms of the rental are up to whoever is listing the item, such as if they want to ask for a driver’s licence or a bond.

Ourthings hopes it will foster a sense of community, as well as reduce wastage around New Zealand.

Hundreds of listings have popped up in the first fortnight already.

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