Högskolan i Skövde

Design aims to create solutions that assist users. While much design has focused on physical goods this could also be accomplished through services. Increasing the service component of products may be a way to move towards functional sales, in which the customer pays for goal fulfilment instead of a physical product. Functional sales have been seen as beneficial from commercial, societal and environmental perspectives. It has primarily been discussed in relation to business to business markets but is interesting also from a consumer perspective. However, concerns have been raised about whether consumers would accept ownerless consumption. Based on focus group interviews around four hypothetical product offers we identify some characteristics of a change towards functional sales and ownerless consumption from a consumer perspective. The impact on consumers’ lives may be described through how it changes the activities in which they engage. New products imply new ways of doing things, and new things to do. Changes may be enabling (assisting the consumer in desirable activities), disabling (constraining what the consumer can do), and may also relieve or introduce musts. Functional sales may support more user-centred solutions but poses great challenges and producers need to adopt a user centred process.