What is it ?
Locate data gathering and service functions that customers might take on willingly—extracting value of their own by doing them. Webusers do the job that are made traditionally by providers.
Why is it interesting for companies?
Indeed, customers could be uncomfortable with doing the sell by themselves. But outsourcing to the customers leads to a strong decrease of the prices. As less employees work on the process, it makes the company save money.
A new process
The traditional and vertical process existing between the provider and the customer is changing with this model. In fact, the procedure is becoming horizontal : the user is given the role of the seller, and knows more liberty in his purchases. We could say that he is acquiring a more important status than before.
An example of outsourcing: www.photoservice.com
You select you photos, your preference and you send it. The following day, you go to the shop to take it. There's no seller anymore. I have often used this process. Once, I had 1000 photos to develop. On the website it cost me 136 euros. As I had problems to load them, I went to the shop to give it to a seller. But if I use this traditional way it costs me 630 euros, because of the work of people who don't do anything on Internet!
