5 Ways how Blockchain is Impacting the eCommerce Industry

By Sourodip Biswas

Technology has been constantly evolving and joining hands to bring forth a true warrior format that can make you highly capable. eCommerce combined with mobile apps to give convenience and comfort to you.

Eventually, it went on to join hands with the mobile wallets and Fintech, which allowed you to commit transactions anywhere at any given time. Today, transactions are being monitored through the Blockchain technology. We are going one step further to make the transactions secure, and disrupt the lives of the shoppers to make way for better experiences.

Blockchain Impacts on the eCommerce Industry

Let’s talk a bit about Blockchain before humouring ourselves into understanding how this technology will affect the eCommerce industry.

Blockchain is a distributed ledger, which allows you to store, share and transact upon any digital asset that seems important to your needs. So, in simple words every transaction that happens has public viewership, thus protecting your assets against all the digital attacks and vulnerabilities. If any changes are made to this digital ledger, then they are automatically shared with the people. This can occur manually or automatically, depending on the type of distributed ledger you are working on.

In the case of Blockchain technology combined with eCommerce, you will notice that it is capable of handling product searches, selection, payment processing, and other aspects virtually, thus giving out a desirable experience to the users. There are obvious advantages associated with blockchain in eCommerce.

Here we will discuss the areas where Blockchain will impact heavily, and how it will be advantageous to you.

#1 Better Supply Chain Tracking & Monitoring

A well-monitored and balanced supply chain is a distant dream for eCommerce businesses. Though it is the most crucial aspect for eCommerce businesses, tracking the products, managing the stock and even centralizing the database seems hard to achieve for the businesses. That’s where Blockchain can help eCommerce in keeping track of the products, and improving the overall monitoring.

Let us take you through some of the use cases for eCommerce in the supply chain aspect

The provenance tracking of the products is extremely important to judge the expiry or best before dates of these products. The RFID tags and the embedded sensors allow the businesses to conduct provenance tracking when they are combined with the blockchain technology. You can trace the product back to its origin, and know the dates in detail

With Blockchain technology, businesses can easily manage their inventory. In fact, the technology makes it unnecessary for businesses to invest in other resources to manage and monitor the inventory. The technology allows you to check on the flow of the products within the chain and also offers you an incorruptible visualization into the processes.

When you are looking at the supply chain, the one issue that can cause concern to everyone is getting hacked or being involved in fraudulent practices. These two issues can lead to inferior products being supplied to the end customers, and reducing the overall satisfaction that exists in the industry.

However, the release of the middlemen from the supply chain owing to the prevalence of blockchain eradicates these risks, and makes up for better business connections. Payments can be processed within the Blockchain between the customers and suppliers instead of the middlemen being in-charge of it. This leads to effective reduction in the overall costs.

The smart contracts within the Blockchain system allows you to automate most of the tasks, thus removing the need for resources to manage the supply chain.
#2 Induces Transparency in the Marketplace

It is important for the marketplace to be transparent so that everyone feels secure in being within the marketplace and knows what is happening around the marketplace. However, before Blockchain, one of the main concerns of the people within the marketplace was the transparency. A lot of eCommerce marketplace would not even consult the manufacturer before removing them.

However, that will change with Blockchain.

Blockchain will let the people within the marketplace know of any changes that occur. Even if a slight change is made to the transaction, everyone would become aware of the same

Wrongdoings are completely monitored within the Blockchain based marketplace so that there is little to no friction between the members of the marketplace, and everyone is aware of everything that happens here

The efficiency has increased in the retail chains such as Walmart and Unilever as a result of the implementation of Blockchain based eCommerce segments, which has increased transparency and efforts. As a result, this technology is being applauded and embraced by one and all within the eCommerce niche.
#3 Payments Get an Efficient Makeover

Cryptocurrency has gained the necessary power, and is being used as an alternative to the traditional currency. In fact, in a world dominated by bitcoin and blockchain-based currencies, the shift towards virtual currency has become obvious. There are obvious advantages of using these currencies in the eCommerce transactions.

It is not unknown that the Blockchain technology is decentralized, which means there is no central authority and the two people involved in the transaction are the only people who can control the operations. As a result, the value of Blockchain is not dependent on the political, economic or any other factors within the countries. Your currency and transaction is valid despite the issues occurring in the different countries
While you have transparency within the transaction, you are never aware of who made these transactions. You have complete visibility into the transaction, its history and how it originated but, you will never know the details.

In many cases, whether you are making a bank transfer or paying via wallets, you will be deemed with some limits. However, that is not the case with Blockchain. You will see that there is no limit on the amount, and the freedom of not being restricted by the geographies of the countries does exist.

Blockchain offers ease-of-use as well as the convenience along with the speed in the transactions. You won’t take long to complete a transaction made with Blockchain. It is instant and there is no regulatory authority, which means you don’t have to pay any extra money to get done with the transactions. Apart from that, you won’t be a part of any fraud, as the technology is based on the peer-to-peer transaction premise.

#4 Secure Platform for eCommerce

Security in any form is a cause of concern for the eCommerce businesses. The Blockchain based eCommerce platform offers security at all levels including data and wallet security.

One of the major concerns for those in the eCommerce industry is data security. The businesses contain data related to the customers, which include their address, phone number and other private details. The blockchain based businesses can ensure complete security.

The reason being, Blockchain as a technology is decentralized, which makes it difficult for hackers to intrude into the data and hack it. In fact, if you want to hack a part of the data, you need to hack into all the nodes on the server, which is virtually impossible.

The next concern is the money that you have added to the wallets. That will also remain safe if you have adopted the Blockchain technology. The randomly generated unique identifier will ensure that the money is transferred via secure means into the wallet of the recipient and no other detail is recorded of this transfer.

#5 Reviews and Offers Stay Genuine

A lot of times you tend to buy a product based on the fake reviews that were written on the website. However, that has changed in the world dominated by Blockchain technology.

Blockchain helps in verifying the reviews and removing all the fake reviews that can be a cause of concern for your business. The reviews are data that are stored in different blocks in the Blockchain technology, and every block is identified and analysed separately. As a result, you get to create a digital map of the reviews, and you will not be able to erase the history or modify it without letting others know about it.

Blockchain based rewards can be redeemed with ease. You just need to put in a condition to make the redemption easier on the customers. In fact, the tracking of the spend or other conditions is done easily with Blockchain.
Summing up

If you are an eCommerce business looking to become efficient, then you should embrace Blockchain technology. It will not just redefine the way you work, but also cater to all your concerns, finding a one-time solution that you can adhere to.

The technology will make your business faster and amp up the pricing as per the needs, from having total control on the supply chain to becoming more cost-efficient, there are many reasons why you should adopt Blockchain technology for your eCommerce business.

Author bio:- 

Sourodip Biswas is a Marketing Professional at Space-O Technologies, a leading eCommerce app development company. He adores mobile app technology and regularly contributes to various websites. In his free time, he reads on new technology trends and is always hungry for more knowledge.

More information about Irish Tech News and the Business Showcase

FYI the ROI for you is => Irish Tech News now get over 1.5 million monthly views, and up to 900k monthly unique visitors, from over 160 countries. We have over 860,000 relevant followers on Twitter on our various accounts & were recently described as Ireland’s leading online tech news site and Ireland’s answer to TechCrunch, so we can offer you a good audience!

Since introducing desktop notifications a short time ago, which notify readers directly in their browser of new articles being published, over 16000 people have now signed up to receive them ensuring they are instantly kept up to date on all our latest content. Desktop notifications offer a unique method of serving content directly to verified readers and bypass the issue of content getting lost in people’s crowded news feeds.

Drop us a line if you want to be featured, guest post, suggest a possible interview, or just let us know what you would like to see more of in our future articles. We’re always open to new and interesting suggestions for informative and different articles. Contact us, by email, twitter or whatever social media works for you.

If you would like to have your company featured in the Irish Tech News Business Showcase, get in contact with us at Simon@IrishTechNews.ie or on Twitter: @SimonCocking