This dynamic book explores the importance of collaborative consumption. Doing so is relevant at a time when the sharing economy has established itself as part of the mainstream market. Nearly 40 expert scholars across the globe go beyond the existing literature to investigate understudied community efforts and spaces, including innovative topics such as hand-me-downs and coworking. Championing an interdisciplinary approach, Understanding Collaborative Consumption follows a detailed framework to dissect its role within the sharing economy. Setting out a schema for understanding collaborative consumption and its paradoxes, it analyses the role of the consumer and provides an exploration of grassroots and community efforts. Contributors discuss platformed and branded efforts to extend the reciprocity based market, and conclude with an appraisal of negative externalities and emerging trends. Providing an in-depth examination of a sector that has in recent years rapidly grown in scope and breadth, this book will be a crucial read for academics and researchers of business management, marketing and sociology. It will also prove valuable to students and scholars interested in economic entrepreneurship, branding and the sharing economy.