日常英語 空房間變生財之道

你想足不出戶賺取外快嗎？分享型經濟允許你向陌生人出租自行車、停車位，甚至家里多余的空間。近年來，一些企業(yè)給希望通過保管他人財物來賺錢的人們提供了眾多新平臺。

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If a stranger offered you money to keep a suitcase in your spare room, would you accept? How about the other way round: if you had too many belongings, would you consider trusting someone you met online with their safekeeping? Anthony Paine believed enough of us would answer 'yes' to these questions to launch his own startup, Stashbee. His business links people with space to those who need it.

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And it's just one player in the booming 'sharing economy', an industry that relies on people renting out things like their beds, bikes and even parking spaces. Airbnb, a company valued at 200bn RMB, provides a platform for those renting property short-term. DogVacay pairs holidaymaking pet owners with pet-friendly hosts, and aims to be profitable by 2017.

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All their business models revolve around one simple word: trust. So, how does Stashbee measure up? BBC journalist Dougal Shaw decided to try it out for himself. He had some odds and ends to store while renovating his house, and met a host through the site who could keep them for 475 RMB for two months. All relatively smooth and painless.

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Heavyweights in the traditional storage industry, such as Big Yellow and Access, aren't convinced. A representative from Access told Shaw he was sceptical about storing with “amateurs”. He cited 24/7 access to the items and better security as the main advantages of his service. Cost-wise it would set you back an extra 160 RMB to store with them.

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Stashbee agree that tackling security concerns is important, but say business success depends more on people overcoming a distrust of strangers we've been taught since childhood.They aren't alone. Companies such as Costockage, Roost and Spacer all run similar storage businesses, and are all banking on a shift in consumer attitudes.

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And the concept of social storage doesn't stop there. CityStasher believe there's a gap in the market for those who want to store things for extremely short periods of time. For example, if you have three hours to kill in a city before your train leaves, what do you do with your suitcase? CityStasher hope you will choose to leave it at a local newsagent, found through their website of course, rather than in the station's pricier left luggage office.

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Would you try it out? It's a question of trust.