In late 2018 blockchain startups Shopin and Blockwell began issuing the 3rd generation token, with some exciting features built in for the next generation of retail.
Today we give you a chance to peer under the hood with a demo video AND a demo you can try out yourself of our first patent-protected method of allowing retailers to spin up their own branded tokens inside the ShopChain ecosystem.
(Yes — we let it slip, ShopChain’s new architecture is vetted and ready to be exposed soon in a new technical whitepaper we will release in the next 2 weeks, which Lane Campbell and Georgi Gospodinov have been working on.)
The big question: What is the use of branded tokens and how does this fit in with the rest of the Shopin Token function?
The $SHOP token serves as a universal token in the Shopin ecosystem, where brands and retailers can take advantage of hypertargetted ads and content delivery based on a shopper owning their purchase data.
We plan for 85% of the money retailers and brands normally pay to 3rd party ad exchanges to rather go to the rightful owners of the data… the shoppers. This is done with the $SHOP token, allowing the user to use those tokens back in the retailer ecosystem, bringing financial and experiential value back into the world of retail.
Eran Eyal, CEO and Founder at Shopin weighs in: We’re bridging the gap between shopper and the brands they love to support. It’s value for the meaningful folks on both sides of the table in the retail ecosystem.
“However, as we spoke to several brands we listened to their excitement surrounding the concept, and also their concerns: how do we increase loyalty simultaneously?”, Eyal adds.
Taking this feedback to heart, Eyal envisaged a new feature and turned to Shopin’s technological partner Blockwell’s CEO, Josh Smith, to help design and implement.
Features for Branded Tokens for Retail:
Retailers can, with almost no effort, take the $SHOP tokens they purchase and convert them into their own branded tokens with some of these exciting features:
- Labeling them as their own tokens
- Assigning different discounts to their own tokens
- Using the branded tokens to access special products and experiences
For the Shopper, the user can click a simple button on their Shopin App (to be released in 2019) and convert them back into $SHOP tokens to be used throughout the ecosystem or transfer into their other wallets or exchange accounts.
Meanwhile the retailers can start seeing their advertising and content budgets coming back to them and rewarding their customers in ways that have never been possible before. It’s freedom and value for both sides of the table.
“There is untold value in having liquidity to rewards you verifiably earned as opposed to current situations where your reward is stored in some database a company controls, mandates you interact with, and has full control over your redemption. Shopin and Blockwell are freeing the shopper and retail economy from these constraints through the Shopin token. You had the power to give that freedom away, together we’re helping to bring it back.” states Josh, CEO of Blockwell.
DEMO OF BRANDED TOKENS FOR RETAIL. CREATE YOUR OWN TOKEN:
Here are some basic instructions on how you can test the feature for yourself. You will be able to create your own token (and then turn it back into the universal original token in our next post!).
It’s important to note that this demo is functioning on the Ethereum blockchain Rinkeby testnet and you will need Metamask to use this feature. To install Metamask please follow instructions here.
NOTE: you will need a tiny bit of Ether in your wallet to test this feature.
KYC
- Proceed to https://shopin-kyc.blockwell.ai
2. Fill out Form for KYC (Know Your Customer)
- First Name
- Last Name
- Wallet Address / Use MetaMask Plugin to Obtain
- Country of Residence
- Confirm Captcha
3. Check your email for confirmation “KYC Address Verification”
4. Click on link to confirm wallet address
5. Follow all instructions within the email
6. Proceed to KYC Verification form
7. Enter Verification Address (this comes from the email Blockwell sent you) and click “Verify”
8. Click “Confirm” upon viewing the metamask popup
9. You will then see under “Transactions” on the right hand side your Hash below “KYC Verification”
10. Click on “Etherscan” to view additional details of the transaction (Note, this may take a few seconds depending on how busy the network is)
11. You should then receive a second email titled “KYC Verified”
12. This email allows you to access the DAPP
13. Click on the DAPP link “Token Dapp” to view the Contract App (Note: If you see a message that states “Metamask is currently not configured for Rinkeby. Change to Rinkeby and try again” then proceed to clicking on the orange icon for Metamask and switch the network to Rinkeby)
14. View your Contract Details
- Contract Address — Where this came from
- Wallet Address — Where was this sent to
- Wallet Balance — How much was sent
Creating Brand Tokens:
15. Scroll to the bottom of your Contract App page to the section titled, “Create Brand Tokens”
- Enter your token “Name” ie MacysTest
- Enter your token “Symbol” ie MaTe
- Enter your amount of tokens you’d like to create ie 50 (Note, you have 10,000 to use for this demo)
16. Click “Create”
17. Click “Confirm” on metamask Popup
18. Scroll up to the page on Contract App to view “Transactions”
19. Click on “View on Etherscan” for details (Note, this may take a few seconds depending on how busy the network is)
20. Below the Etherscan page, notice “Tokens Transferred” to see the number of ST tokens to your brand symbol tokens ie ST -> MaTe)
Token Swapper for Converting Branded Tokens to Shopin Tokens
1. Check your email for a link to the Swapper then click “Connect to MetaMask” on the right hand side
2. Scroll down on page and click on “Select Tokens” to begin procedure
3. Choose your token(s) you’d like to convert when a popup appears titled “Tokens”
4. Enter the amount of tokens below “Amount” (remember how many you made earlier) that you’d like to convert
5. Click “Swap Tokens”
6. Click “Confirm” on MetaMask popup and wait for the transaction to complete
8. You then see a message stating “Swap in Progress”
9. Click on EtherScan to view details of the transaction
10. Under “Tokens Transferred” you will see the branded symbol of tokens and amount that was converted back to ST tokens
11. To confirm you have the original 10,000 tokens, proceed to the DAPP Contract app and view amount below “Wallet Balance”
About Shopin:
Shopin is a universal shopper profile, built on the blockchain and powered by our proprietary artificial intelligence tools. Shopin aims to deliver shoppers the most personal experience on every site and app, as well as in store, by working with retailers to give shoppers control of their purchased data.
When shoppers their purchase data, we can enable retailers to advertise directly to the shopper, who gets 85% of the ad revenue to spend back in the world of retail through the Shopin and branded tokens.
Our mission is to transform the retail web into a decentralized “Amazon-model” through our proprietary artificial intelligence tools and blockchain approach. We’re driven to ensure that timeless brands have the opportunity and tools to remain timeless.
Recently Shopin launched the Retail Intelligence Data Engine which leverages more than 3.5 billion purchase data transactions, 30 million SKU connections and 67,000 brands, to democratize and decentralize the forecasting and recommendation power of retail giants to the rest of the retail economy.
Shopin is the winner of BTC Miami (North American Bitcoin Conference), CoinAgenda Global and Bitcoinference 2018.
About Blockwell:
Blockwell is a chain of chains built on Ethereum, to scale Ethereum. They provide the building blocks for business and entrepreneurs to create tokenized products and revenue streams for the real world, today. We provide attorney focused token tech, cross-chain swaps (gas free) utility APIs, custodial wallets, dapp builders and pre-audited smart contracts backed by our immutable revshare enforcing smart license to make sure you always get your fair share..
Our mission is to reward everyone who creates value, make helping yourself be helping the network, and help the whole world enter this game changing new infrastructure. Shopin’s R.I.D.E. and BrandTokens together show a real world use case that transcends the bounds of average. We can’t wait to see what else they come up with.
