Unboxing the Future of Retail: Lum Network
In 2009, when Satoshi Nakomoto created the first real use-case for the immutable, transparent, and tamper-proof ledger that we now know as blockchain, the world didn’t pay much attention. Yet, in the decade that has followed its first implementation, this novel technology has spread its wings to a multitude of industries that now benefit significantly from its signature features.
Some of these industries benefiting from blockchain are finance, gaming, entertainment, and art. A rather new addition to the list of industries benefiting from blockchain is retail.
There has been a seismic shift in the consumers’ mindset over recent years.
Modern-day consumers are becoming increasingly conscious about what they consume and how they consume it. They now demand transparency, sustainability, and recognition.
On the other hand, retailers are stuck with the traditional ways, further complicating their struggle to keep up with the demands of the modern-day consumer. This is where blockchain technology is bound to make a world of a difference in the retail sector.
Incorporating blockchain in retail means that businesses no longer need to ask to be trusted. They can earn their customers’ invaluable trust and loyalty by proving the authenticity of the product and their past performances. In this essence, the Lum Network is guiding retailers’ paths towards this paradigm shift.
Sandblock to Lum Network: The Evolution Keeps Going
Our journey with The Lum Network as you know it today started in the year 2017 when we launched an Ethereum-based project called Sandblock. The aim of the project was to offer one of the most futuristic blockchain reward programs. And even more than four years ago, our team of engineers envisioned using blockchain technology to transform the way customers and businesses interacted.
Following a successful token launch in 2018, we partnered with several businesses and corporations and built a mobile application dubbed Lumki (formerly called Surprise) to allow our users to access the best online offers from retailers.
In mid-2020, Skeepers’ Group acquired the Lumki application. As the next step toward their mission of transforming consumer-retailer relationships, we progressed to create the Lum Network — a dedicated infrastructure for the project that is built using the popular Cosmos SDK and Tendermint BFT consensus.
After spending over five years in retail, our team of developers realized that blockchain in retail is not about disrupting the existing industry. In fact, a look at the existing makeup of the retail industry tells us that it is not easy to disrupt the industry at all.
The Lum Network takes a unique approach and intends to build new tools and systems in an effort to aid the industry in its evolution to the next stage.
Lum Network: Tools for the Future of Retail
We are actively creating trust between businesses and consumers involved in the retail industry through Lum Network.
To achieve this, we use a futuristic, sustainable blockchain infrastructure that employs the Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) consensus.
This not only makes the network affordable but also sustainable, reducing the project’s carbon footprint. In addition, the blockchain also processes transactions in a matter of seconds, making it highly suitable for retail transactions.
We continuously strive to onboard new partners and provide them with the necessary systems required to ace the retail game. While the Lum Network is open to partnering with most businesses, our focus remains on working with “trusted third parties”, which are businesses that offer any kind of middleman services for brands, retailers, and customers. The aim behind partnering with them is to indirectly touch and impact the processes of thousands of businesses on a global scale.
It’s a simple idea: we can either reach out to individual businesses and help them use our tools or we can reach out to a few middlemen who already offer an array of services to thousands of growing retail businesses.
Okay! But what tools are we exactly talking about?
On-Chain Reviews
As mentioned before, by incorporating blockchain in retail, businesses would be able to prove their authenticity and past successes. Lum makes it possible with a system of on-chain reviews. It is estimated that over 95% of users read reviews before making a purchase and in this essence, reviews are invaluable to businesses. Lum Network allows businesses to timestamp the reviews shared by their users and store them immutably on-chain.
As blockchain offers immutable records, these reviews become the one single source of truth about a business. They act as trustworthy and reliable feedback that can aid future customers to make the right decision. Besides, businesses can also commodify these reviews in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
Qualifying Rewards
In the legacy systems, it is fairly difficult to transparently reward reviews, and it is easy for consumers to fall for paid reviews.
The Lum Network solves this through its decentralized reward system which utilizes blockchain in its background.
Doing so ensures that everyone can easily check the immutable records stored for every review and confirm that a consumer who shared a 1-star review received the same reward as those who shared a 5-star review. The only condition to receiving equal records, however, is that the quality of the reviews should be the same.
To assess quality, we analyze several objective parameters such as the number of characters, attached photo or video, etc. We also include NLP in the quality analysis process, and in the near future, we will introduce a social proof system where the community will assess and decide the quality of the reviews.
This process allows review readers to rest assured that the reviews they are reading are actually genuine so they can make better purchasing decisions.
Blockchain-as-a-Service
While these tools are a gold mine for businesses, the process of integrating them into business processes and legacy technological stacks may not be easy, especially for those who lack advanced technical knowledge.
This is why Lum developed the Lum Gateway, which offers a blockchain-as-a-service API to allow businesses to easily integrate Lum’s revolutionary tools into their existing processes.
The Gateway provides a simple interface to access the Lum Network along managed secure wallets for backend integration of Lum applications. The Gateway facilitates instant conversions from fiat to crypto and vice-versa, thus enabling businesses to not only integrate the technology faster but also to finally use cryptocurrency as a gamification system for their consumers.
The Lum Network’s Gateway is a one stop shop for businesses to use the Lum Network and the $LUM while abiding with regulations with minimal efforts.
Skeepers: Our First Major Partner
Having had a great track record with us, Skeepers’ Group has once again trusted the abilities and vision of our team and has become our first major partner. They work with brands and businesses from across the globe to provide SaaS solutions that help them acquire and retain new customers and increase customer engagement.
Besides, Skeepers is a trusted third-party firm that has an influencer network of over 400,000, and it processes tens of millions of reviews every year.
As part of the partnership with Skeepers, Lum Network will enable them to create provable, immutable reviews and store them on-chain to create trust between businesses and consumers. Businesses associated with Skeepers will also be able to reward users with $LUM tokens that have actual real-world value instead of shopping vouchers that very often end up not being used.
Having Skeepers as a first partner is a tremendous achievement for the Lum Network. It is just the beginning for us and we will partner with many promising, renowned brands in the retail space to bring our solutions to the world that so desperately needs them.
Token Poised for Mass Adoption
To create a self-sustained economic model, we needed a token with real value to power the Lum ecosystem. And doing exactly that is $LUM — our native token that all players in the Lum ecosystem must have to use the tools and solutions.
In that essence, every business that partners with Lum Network becomes a holder of $LUM, which opens doors for a wide variety of people apart from regular crypto users. In addition, Lum Network also rewards customers who leave valuable feedback with $LUM.
The Lumki social wallet (available on web/iOS/Android) provides a simple, user friendly way to acquire, hold and use $LUM while offering cashback rewards across more than 1000 online stores.
The Lum Network’s private token sale is now live and open for those who aim to become early contributors to the network. You can visit our website and request to be whitelisted for the sale if you have a valuable contribution to make.
Lum for the Future of Retail
The possibilities that blockchain technology can create in the world of retail are endless. For both businesses and rapidly evolving consumers, blockchain can provide a middle ground or a trust layer where they can come together to interact. Without this trust layer, valuable businesses might be ignored and consumers might end up making wrong purchasing decisions.
This is why we believe Lum Network is the need of the hour for the retail space. Our futuristic tools can significantly aid both businesses and customers to make the right decisions and progress to the next level of development. We are excited to be building the future of retail and are looking forward to adding more to our suite of tools and solutions.
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