Blockchain Use Cases: E-Commerce
Blockchain is a cutting-edge technology that can be implemented in a variety of industries and make our life better in many ways. Our Blockchain Use Cases heading is meant to study the ways blockchain can be applied and overview the projects implementing it in different fields.
The worldwide e-commerce market keeps on growing. According to statista.com, the market size for retail e-commerce sales is expected to grow from $2,3 trillion in 2017 to $4,9 trillion in 2021. Nevertheless, e-commerce still faces a number of challenges such as:
- Strong competition requiring for smarter business models and technologies for the companies to survive.
- Need for middlemen increasing the costs and complicating the whole process.
- Low level of consumer personal data and financial details protection.
- Complex process consisting of a number of different supply chain stages.
Blockchain technology can help to solve these and other challenges and become the driving force behind e-commerce in the near future providing higher level of security, reliability and decentralization opportunities. Now let’s study the ways e-commerce can benefit from implementing blockchain technolodgy.
Increased security and complete transparency
One of the key advantages of blockchain technology is its ability to establish trust between the parties significantly decreasing possibility of disputes between them. Buyers are protected due to usage of smart contracts which transfer money to a seller only when an order reaches its destination. Thus, blockchain increases buyers’ confidence and makes online shopping more attractive. Besides, the users’ personal data is securely protected with the use of blockchain. Besides, blockchain brings transparency in transactions as each transaction is recorded in a shared ledger and cannot be changed by anybody providing security, visibility and traceability.
Enhanced operational efficiency
Blockchain technology and smart contracts can significantly facilitate supply chain execution and tracking in e-commerce, allowing regulating logistics and payment processing and providing easy integration with various management systems. These innovations enable to make inventory control automatically so that an online store never runs out of products at the same time ensuring that excess inventory is not accumulated. Moreover, blockchain provides faster transactions, simplifying payment process and eliminating the need for intermediaries.
Cost effectiveness
Blockchain brings alternative payment methods with the use of cryptocurrencies providing a number of advantages over traditional fiat currencies, such as fast and cheap transactions with no extra fees. Blockchain is a better solution for payment processing as it can balance speed, privacy and integrity as well as eliminate financial boundaries. Implementation of multicurrency wallets with both, crypto and fiat support can help buyers and sellers to interact easily and perform cross-border payments in a convenient way with lower fees for transferring crypto payments comparing to fiat transfers.
Smart and fair reviews
In today’s e-commerce world there are a lot of counterfeit reviews about products and services so that users can’t really trust most reviews. Blockchain can change the situation bringing transparency and honesty to online reviews. Blockchain-based e-commerce platforms can motivate users to write true feedback about obtained products and services for loyalty rewards. Besides, blockchain can control that shoppers leave reviews only after receiving the ordered good, decreasing the possibility of fake reviews.
Advanced promotion opportunities
Blockchain provides advanced opportunities for smart cooperation between sellers and influencers providing direct interaction between them and enhanced automated loyalty rewards. Customer loyalty reward programs can be completely automated within a blockchain since all records are stored in the blockchain it is easy to create smart contracts offering discounts or issuing reward points to customers as they surpass certain spending thresholds.
Blockchain-based e-commerce startups
There are some startups that have already begun to employ blockchain to build the robust business solutions for e-commerce. Some of them are:
✔ Storiqa — a blockchain-based marketplace that allows selling and buying goods with cryptocurrencies and without financial boundaries. Implementation of smart contracts provides safe purchase system, open 24/7 statistics and trusted reviews.
✔ ECoinmerce — a social e-commerce platform based on blockchain technology. All digital assets on the platform including online stores, product pages, videos, reviews and so on, are 100% ownedby the users who created them.
✔ Eligma — an AI-driven and blockchain-based platform for e-commerce offering a number of innovative solutions for the industry. The platform provides decentralized sales and loyalty infrastructure, crypto payment gateway, mobile app and POS crypto payments and other shopping solutions.
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