Removing the middlemen in the world of e-commerce
The current state of e-commerce marketplaces disadvantages both buyers and sellers. This is because most of them are designed to turn a profit while having little regard for any of their users. One of the ways centralized marketplaces such as Amazon and Ebay do this is by forcing sellers to increase their prices, sometimes up to five times their original. Sellers must pay for various tools such as commissions, logistics, and sometimes ads. Many services also force sellers to prove their trustworthiness by paying certain fees too. These are all middleman fees, and they are harmful to small businesses.
Middleman (or intermediary) fees such as high commissions and market listings are designed to extract as much money from small sellers as possible, in exchange for numerous tools and services which could easily be offered for cheaper. When sellers have to pay extra fees, they are forced to raise the prices of their goods so that they can turn a profit. This means that buyers are also punished. Furthermore, because companies like Amazon and Ebay already know how powerful they are in the e-commerce industry, there is unfortunately no incentive for them to stop. Time after time, they have proven to not be interested in creating a flourishing ecosystem, meaning that they only care about making money. They do not seem to care about how harmful their practices are to small business owners.
A marketplace without middlemen
Of course, a simple solution to this problem would be to remove the middlemen! Numerous services which they offer can be performed by the marketplaces themselves, for much cheaper. This is how ApolloX operates.
The fact that ApolloX is a decentralized marketplace means that it has a major advantage over its centralized counterparts such as Amazon and Ebay. ApolloX’s blockchain technology enables peer-to-peer transactions to take place in a trustworthy setting. ApolloX can also prevent most scams and fraudulent activity through its use of smart contracts, as well as through community input. As these features are all built into ApolloX, rather than offered by intermediaries, they are going to be cheaper to take advantage of. The fact that all relevant data is held on the blockchain means that ApolloX has a higher command over purchases than centralized marketplaces too. For instance, once a purchase is made, the data is encrypted and then added to the blockchain. The customer’s payment will then be held in a smart contract. Their money will only get released to the seller once data has been added to the blockchain that the product has arrived and the customer is satisfied. If a customer’s item is damaged or lost, they can stop their payment from being released, meaning they won’t have to wait for reimbursement. This is just one example of how ApolloX protects its buyers without the need for middlemen. As both the use of smart contracts and blockchain technology is built into the decentralized marketplace, this means that no intermediaries are needed.
This improves the world of e-commerce in two ways. First, sellers no longer have to pay huge fees to cover certain unfortunate situations, meaning they can keep their prices lower. Second, customers are more comfortable purchasing on ApolloX because of the high-quality protection it offers.
Shipping and handling on ApolloX
Two of the main services middlemen take care of on centralized marketplaces is shipping and the handling of goods. The current nature of e-commerce may have you convinced that there is no better way to deal with this, but they are wrong. On ApolloX, the seller can choose to provide various shipping options with guaranteed processing times. Once an order is made using one of these shipping options, a smart contract covering the guaranteed shipping time will be created. This way the customer can know exactly when their product can be expected to arrive, and can also use the smart contract to promptly receive a settlement if their product doesn’t come on time. That fact that this is all handled by ApolloX means that fees stay minimal.
As you can see, ApolloX makes the process of using a decentralized marketplace much easier, safer, and cheaper. Centralized marketplaces have taken advantage of buyers and small sellers for too long now, but thankfully with the use of blockchain technology and smart contracts, this no longer has to be the case. By creating a fair system, ApolloX is also creating a thriving and happy ecosystem of e-commerce users.
