The Blockchain Solution To Save Retail Stores
It is no secret that brick and mortar stores are a sunset business, with giant e-commerce companies such as Amazon and Alibaba taking over the retail industry. However, the majority of retail transactions still takes place at offline stores for a variety of reasons, such as being able to touch and feel the items at retail stores.Therefore retail stores are definitely here to stay in some capacity.
How do we then make retail stores as competitive as the e-commerce stores? Sharing with you how Blockchain technology may be a solution for retail stores to increase their conversion rates.
Problems retailers are facing
“Everyone is going online to buy their items,
so nobody wants to go down to stores to buy anymore.”
It is convenient to pin the main reason for the declining retail scene to the above reason, but it is not so simple. Rather than think of it as a “Retail store vs E-commerce store” problem, why not think of how businesses can utilize both online and offline channels to improve their business model?
Numerous retail businesses are already utilizing online channels such as advertising on Facebook and Google, as well as posting their retail items on e-commerce platforms. This is where the real problem lies. It is hard or impossible to track whether online ads are pushed to your intended target audience, or worse still, if the ads are pushed to bots. In addition to that, e-commerce platforms charge hefty commission fees and competition is stiff.
How then can retail stores get more foot traffic and conversions in their stores with the existing landscape of E-commerce dominance and expensive online marketing channels where the ads cannot be verified to have been pushed to the correct target audience?
How Blockchain solves this problem
We always hear of how blockchain can revolutionize the world and make the world a better place. While many functions of blockchain technology are merely a pipe dream or just mindless hyping up of products by companies, there are functions of blockchain that we can look at to solve problems faced by retail stores.
Firstly, the transparent nature of the blockchain ensures that retail stores can verify that online ads they post are sent to their target audience, and not to bots. Secondly, besides being able to verify where their ads are being sent to, companies can use this data to improve on their online marketing and refine their target audience.
Centareum- An Interesting Retail Project
Recently I bumped into Centareum, a blockchain project that aims to drive traffic and conversion to physical retail stores. Below is a flow of how the Centareum platform works.
To post an ad, all a retailer needs to do is to take a photo of their store and post the location of their store on the Centareum app. Users who sign up for the platform will need to go through a Know Your Customer (KYC) process and fill in their demography, geography and preferences. This data will be stored on the blockchain and companies are not able to access it.
Based on the location of the users and their product preferences, ads posted by the retail stores will be sent to users who are in the vicinity of the store. This ensures quality traffic sent to the retail stores, ensuring that retail stores get maximum value out of their advertising budgets.
In addition, Centareum offers a payment gateway where users can use either Fiat or Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ether and Centareum tokens. This, if executed properly will be a significant step towards mainstream adoption of Cryptocurrencies. Hence Centareum is a project that I will be looking out for and you should too, if you are a retailer.
Find out more about Centareum in the links below!
Centareum Website
Centareum Facebook
Centareum Twitter
Centareum Instagram
Centareum Telegram
Centareum Medium
