Decentralized store: An hybrid system
In this following articles we describe how a decentralized store can save products on the blockchain and keep transaction on private database and allowing cryptopayment. This system based on Cardano offer a solution to create light online store that can create trust and transparency.
1~ Registration
User can register with an email and password to create an account. It will receive a shop id (staking address) and can choose a username. User will also provide location information to receive products. From this point user can directly start to shop for product.
2 ~ Licence
Licence (minting policy) are used by user to create and modify token thus it protect their intellectual property over a product accross the blockchain. Product will be created on the blockchain therefore accessible and directly available to use in other store but the information that they contain such as description or labelling can only be modified by the licence owner also called product creator. Product name can contains the GTIN information to be GTIN compatible as recommended in our previous article (Decentralized store: Proof of concept). At the store creation, a first licence will be linked to the store. The licence can be shared with other user temporarily but the licence creator keep an admin role over the licence.
3 ~ Store
User can open a store to sell their product directly, where the store will be saved under the user username that can directly be a company name. The store can be public or private (hidden, accessible upon invitation). Store will be divided in two parts: a section will present the item and price based on the inventory (loan product). Another section will also be dedicated to the product minted (owned product) by a licence owned by the store that will always be publicly accessible. Store can be verified by a third party in charge of the account checking (similarly to social platform such as meta, twitter verified account). Once account is verified, licence under the account thus product minted with the licence will also received an sign of recognition.
4 ~ Inventory
Users will use available blockchain tokens to create and manage their inventory. To add products to their inventory they can search by product owner (store) then product. Quantity will be dynamically managed as well as product pricing. A general payment rule can be defined to rule the payment (for example 80% to this address 20% to this address). Otherwise a rule can be defined product by product a rule can be added to define the payment address.
Payment rules can be complex, based on a specific amount or a percent and can regroup multiple addresses (that can include the delivery for example).
5 ~ Transfer and Traceability
Products will be transferred from store to another at a specific quantity. Traceability is a set of information that provide the origin and development of a product in the supply-chain. Store can associate a traceability report to this product that will combine all the product transaction made in the database. If a location is indicated then the report will have geolocations. Product will present the product licence therefore visitor could know where is the product come from. Combining transactions and location (from user profile) can therefore provide a full product traceability.Each transactions has a unique identifier and is registered on the transaction database along with the sender and receiver, the product id, quantity.
6 ~ Product shopping
Visitor will land on the website, search for a products or enter in a specific brand and look the product. During this phase user will receive the blockchain info from the product, and traceability. Pick up items to add them on his cart. To access the checkout, if the visitor do not have an account a registration will be required. Otherwise user will check out products together with pickup/delivery condition based on the shop and user location give the final price and complete the payment. If the wallet has enough cryptocurrencies, will proceed to the payment. Shop and user will be informed of the completed payment and could access the historic of the account transaction completed.
Information will be recorded in the transaction DB that will contain the list of product bought the transaction status and payment status (“waiting, completed”) and the transaction ID of the cryptopayment.
Conclusion
Here we describe an hybrid system that allies blockchain and several database to create a store based on blockchain tokens that will use cryptocurrencies. The advantages are that we preserve the integrity of information thanks to tokens, transactions are private, will have a confidence score and traceability and transaction are free. A disadvantage is centralization, double spending transaction, security breach.
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