E-commerce is the new cool! With new and innovative features over the web, this means of shopping is becoming widely preferred to traditional retail services. The attention and rate of growth in the industry in such a short time is amazing, so much that it is estimated to amass a significant 12% of the total market share in the year 2019, and reach a Market Cap of at least about $4.88 trillion by the year 2021. That's because unlike traditional offline marketing, there are far more benefits for online businesses. They include but are not limited to the following
- Brand recognition both locally and abroad
- Access to a global market and a wider reach
- Lower costs of advertising, marketing, and labour
- Ease and convenience of business, digital currencies, etc.
- Availability of more information on a product
However, just like the traditional retail market and everything else today, e-commerce is not without some problems and limitations. These limitations could range from finding the right products to sell online to generating traffic, attracting and keeping the right customers in such a global and highly competitive space. However, perhaps a more compelling issue is the threat that counterfeiting poses to Brand manufacturers and their businesses.
Counterfeit. Piracy. Imitation. Call it whatever you like, the terms refer to the illegal practice of proliferation of product(s)/service(s) by another manufacturer other than the real manufacturer, often leading to the production and sales of substandard products and services using the brand name of the real manufacturer. It is a sophisticated criminal practice that is often very difficult to mitigate once it has started.
Did you know?
The Estimated losses in revenues due to counterfeit products in the market soared to a whopping $323 billion In 2017, with about 80% of those products coming from China? Big brands in the industry may have lost as much as 1/3 of the above figure in market share as fake manufacturers thrive on the unsuspecting market, especially for products from these brands with already established public trust and credibility.
It might be safe to assume that a fair number of my readers might have bought counterfeits off the shelf in the past. I know I have. Two years ago, my cousin living in Africa was tricked into buying a fake mobile device for a significantly cheap amount. She must have been thrilled with the thought that she's saved a few bucks on a good deal until she got to realize that it was fake after all. And there was no going back from that. She had gotten it from an online shop with no proper return policies!
To understand the destructive tendencies counterfeiting poses to brand names if left unchecked, I have pulled the image below from the Datadotdna Website to prove that fact.
The image shows the gradual decline of sales volume for a particular genuine product as the counterfeit (which, usually, is cheaper in price) steals a share of the market. This doesn't only affect sales volume and profits alone, it also increases the original manufacturer's marketing cost and affects brand name by dimming their reliability and supposed durability of products.
Counterfeiting also has far-reaching effects on the consumer. For products that contribute to the safety and health of the consumer, fake products could lead to damages and fails that could amount to millions of dollars in monetary value. Not to mention the injuries, illness, and possibly, the loss of human lives!
Current Solutions to Brand Counterfeiting.
Of course, we'd love to be free of counterfeits in our markets. The hospitals and retail pharmaceuticals need to be sure they're buying the authentic drugs to give out to patients and I'd like to be sure my newest pair of football boots worth $200 isn't a sham!
We've got a few ways to deal with that. With Near Field Communication (NFC), Barcodes and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technologies, we might have found a way to reduce the rate at which counterfeits get to the consumer. However, as e-commerce continues to become preferable, fake product proliferators have taken to poorly-regulated e-commerce and social media platforms with a wider reach to end users. Fake goods still find their way to the market anyhow.
Also, what you might not know about these pieces of technology is that they are really expensive to implement and demands a lot of money from the true manufacturers, which, often times, lead to increase in the price of final products.
Why isn't anyone talking about Blockchain technology yet?
Introducing simplyBrand
simplyBrand was built to create a new world for digital commerce wherein brands and consumers are protected from the damaging and lethal effects of counterfeit goods. A world where consumers can purchase goods globally without fear of receiving a substandard or harmful product, and where brands retain their market share and no longer have to worry about being tarnished by counterfeits!simplyBrand Whitepaper.
simplyBrand is a blockchain application that is developed on the Ethereum blockchain. The company's headquarters is currently based in the Cayman Islands and it was co-founded in 2013 by tech and business experts CEO Kaufman Chang and CMO Ronnie Ng. They have a functional team of about 16 experts in their relative fields (plus advisors) and have attracted over 9 brand partners, including tech giants Asus and Haier.
simplyBrand is poised to kill off the prevalence of counterfeit goods on the global market and plans to achieve this goal by Implementing an AI-powered blockchain and the wisdom of the crowd. With the immutable features of Blockchain technology and the human ingenuity of an organic, incentivized, crowdsourcing community, simplyBrand will be able to identify, trace and blacklist such products as indelible entries on the blockchain. Using the data provided by simplyBrand, popular e-commerce platforms can enact stricter product listing policies and Law Enforcement agencies fighting piracy and counterfeits are able to easily catch up with counterfeit thieves!
The cryptocurrency to be used as a means of incentivization on the ecosystem is the SBA, an ERC-20 token. Participants will be required to stake some SBA to be deemed a functional member on the platform. As they participate, each user is given a random set of product information to verify. Once that is done and is cross-checked with the results from the database and is proven to be correct, they will be incentivized with the SBA tokens. simplyBrand users can also contribute by directly reporting counterfeit products they find on the e-commerce websites and social media outlets on the internet as well. There is also a rating mechanism in place to guard against platform abuse.
SBA Tokens Presale is Live!
simplyBrand is partnering with Cobinhood, a commission-free cryptocurrency exchange and ICO service firm to launch its first Private Token sales. Token presale started on the 10th of January 2019 and will be open for the next 71 days. Private sale participation is open to every country except citizens of China and the US, due to the restrictions placed by the governments of these countries. More Presale details are as follows:
The total number of tokens up for presale: 160,000,000 SBA tokens.
Presale Duration: 10 January 2019, 9 AM --- 23rd March 2019, 4:59:59 PM
Token Price: 1 SBA = 0.00025 ETH
Presale Soft Cap: 4000 ETH
Presale Hard Cap: 40,000 ETH.
It is important to note that there will be presale bonuses when cumulative ETH received reaches predetermined points as indicated on the simplyBrand presale page on Cobinhood. Also, there is an active affiliate program running for this presale as contained in the aforementioned link.
As regards project ratings, simplyBrand scored an average of 4.8/5 across a number of third-party ICO rating platforms. You're welcome to find more information on websites like ICO bench ICO top, and ICO creed.
I believe that Brands will save cost and combat counterfeiting efficiently with simplyBrand's solutions. Blockchain technology is not just effective to serve as a database for recording counterfeits and substandard items, it is scalable and is easily accessible to the company's clients and individuals alike.
In conclusion, I think simplyBrand is a winner because it is adaptable and brings back trust in digital commerce by allowing for just about any internet user to support their favourite brands by becoming anti-counterfeit agents and earn some valuable incentives in cryptocurrencies and exclusive products from satisfied Brands.
The future of e-commerce is bright and it would require a few innovative ideas. For simplyBrand, it's three things - Blockchain, AI, and You.
For more information about simplyBrand and the ongoing presale, do not forget to check out the links to the official website and the Presales page on Cobinhood below:
simplyBrand -- Official Website
simplyBrand -- Official Presale page on Cobinhood
simplyBrand -- Official Twitter handle