7 Ways Blockchain Improves the E-Commerce Experience

With each passing day, humans move towards more technological solutions rather than staying with the old, cliché methods in everyday life chores. Whether it is trading or shopping, new technological methods are replacing outdated models at an unimaginable pace. And the most that has been benefited by it is retail. Retail has taken a great shift since e-commerce came along and took over the world. In fact, even Pakistan’s E-Commerce Market is set to Surpass $9 Billion by 2025 according to SAPM.

Blockchain grows popular day by day across multiple industries such as gaming and e-commerce. You might be wondering why? This is because saving time and effort is the main goal of newer generations. This newer generation of customers want to have power over transactions. Similarly, retailers want to have everything managed in a patronized way and both these aspects pave the way for Blockchain to continue rising in popularity.

Blockchain is an abiding, sharable journal having ability to secure and track assets, manage transactions which results in building ultimate trust. Blockchain has three major components:

1. Inflexible Journal: Inflexible journals cannot be tempered in any case and transaction records are clean and can be tracked at any moment.
2. Shared Journal Technology: All ledgers can be shared with network participants. No duplication of transaction occurs due to this technology.
3. Smart Contracts: In smart contracts, conditions are defined to gain trust and transfers can be made easy.

Online shopping faces supply chain issues at retail level and trust issues at customer end. Blockchain technology has a solution for both.

1) Improves Supply Chain Administration & Tracking:

Supply chain administration is basically handling all people, resources and information which makes sure your product is delivered to customer. This also includes managing inventory and keep an updated list for customers. In shopping, customers often have to wait for their products while having no idea where the product is. For this purpose, blockchain technology provides per second track record of the shipped product by scanning a QR code.

2) Ensures fixed prices:

Blockchain technology makes sure that once a customer deal is done on a specific price, there is no room for surge in it. At every step, there is a certain amount to be paid. Blockchain technology ensures transparency and avoids inflation while you are in the middle of the deal. Price remains the same as offered at the beginning.

3) Ensures transparency:

In every case, transparency is important. Managing all products, removing flaws and taking care of delays can be handled by blockchain technology. In such times, it is very easy to sell a knock-off. Anybody can set up an e-commerce platform and start selling knock-offs. Fakes are everywhere and many customers fell into this trap. All of this happens due to unavailability of tracking products. This problem has been solved by blockchain technology and it provides the history of product, gaining customer’s trust and building a bond.

4) Protects Your Identity:

All customers will have a specific key-pair. A public key used for encryption of messages and a private key for decryption. Both keys will be required for registration. Registration is done for the lifetime, not for some years. You only have to join this system once and data will be saved for million years to come. All parties that are involved in trading are kept secret. Identity is shown only to those involved in business.

5) Adaptable to crypto currencies:

Blockchain technology is adaptive to crypto currencies. This method can be useful for payments. In large consignments, payments are also large but this issue can be resolved by using crypto currencies which will ultimately lower the work load of finance departments. Crypto currency can be used and there will be no delays in payment as there will be no bank and other source in middle. Transactions will be in between retailer and customer directly which will automatically eliminate the middle man or source. End to end trail record is also stored due to blockchain which makes it easy to check transactions at any time due to smart contacts. In this decentralized method, there is no third party to pay. No middle man or bank is there to verify each and every step. All the dealing is directly in between two parties and thus, it saves money and time. All transactions take several minutes to be completed not days or months as such in case of banks or middle entity.

6) Fraud-Free System:

In this system, it is impossible to crack and commit a fraud at any level. Blockchain technology records transactions in online ledgers and transparency is there, so no currency gives too much to enjoy. In blockchain, all transactions are based on peer-to-peer technology.

7) Authorized Sellers:

In this system, a customer can go through a seller’s history. From the start to till date, all data is saved in it. Seller’s customer review and ratings are there in case a customer wants to check feedback for purchasing. Another good thing about this system is that only those sellers with excellent history with customers will appear. No one with bad reviews will be there. Due to this, trust is maintained in both parties and all you have to do is to just click and shop.

Blockchain is the face of the future which will make it more feasible for us to buy and sell with a trusted and transparent connectivity. It is the high time we understand the value of it and promote it through the right and proper channel.