Today, the name of the game in business is to “go digital or die”. E-commerce has turned out to be the new norm, indeed. Yet, although this development is benefiting all stakeholders, it still has rooms for improvement. And Araw, the blockchain-based ecosystem that dared to create a unified rewards system, is set to bring the e-commerce industry into even greater heights.
The E-commerce Industry and Its Existing Shortcomings
Years ago, if a builder wishes to construct a house, he walks straight to the neighborhood hardware store to buy his supplies. If there are unavailable items, he checks out the black-and-white directory for possible suppliers and calls them one by one. He then places an order, never mind that he hasn’t physically inspected the items. He waits for several weeks without a tracking device and hopes against all odds that the parcel doesn’t get lost.
Yet, that is now an old builder’s tale. Nowadays, e-commerce has reshaped the trading industry to an extent that an American consumer may already order bars of soap from Japan or pay a flower shop in Paris to deliver a bouquet of tulips to a friend despite the distance. This isn’t magic, but a product of a series of technological breakthroughs (i.e., online payment, instant messaging, websites, etc) that emerge because of the Internet.
In 2014 alone, the e-commerce sales worldwide amounted to 1.3 trillion USD, signifying the prevalence of online trading. Most stores maintain their own websites, blogs, or social media accounts to compete in their respective niches. Some stores even prioritize having an online shop before establishing a physical shop. This is great as new entrepreneurs now have an easy access to global consumers. The consumers, on the other hand, have a wider selection of brands and merchants. Yet, there are problems that plague the industry.
One problem is the lack of security. Many credit card information used in paying for the items have been stolen. The consumers do not feel safe anymore and sometimes choose to pay for their online orders using over-the-counter transactions, which have higher charges.
Secondly, the consumers are burdened with high transaction charges. Primarily, e-commerce sites have partnered with basic financial intermediaries, such as banks, credit card companies, and money transfers. While the financial business side is gaining, the consumer side is losing. The playing field is, therefore, uneven.
Thirdly, the trading now is only a matter of exchange of goods and services. When the consumer buys, he does not normally get returns unless there is a sale. Yes, there are discount or loyalty cards given by some stores, however, they vary considerably that a shopper may end up having a bloated wallet because of the 16 reward cards he needs to keep. Apart from this, it becomes a heavy burden to keep track of the different expiry dates and conversion systems. Without a doubt, it’s a grand wish for any consumer to maintain a single reward card for different merchants. Well, Araw heard the woes of the consumers and comes up with several features to address the security, costliness, and segmentation problems in the retail industry.
Araw Features
Araw aims to become the ultimate e-commerce partner of every consumer in the world. Unlike other platforms that only seek to gain profit, Araw seeks to become a lifetime partner. It is for this reason that the following features are created:
Araw Pay. This blockchain-compliant payment service resolves the security concerns of consumers. The blockchain technology is more secure than the basic financial systems because it uses a distributed ledger. In other words, every transaction in blockchain is encrypted and distributed across different nodes, thereby preventing a single entity from monopolizing the database. More so, the information is unalterable and the costs are minimal.
Araw Card. This touch and pay payment capability gives way for micropayments without any hassle. Araw introduces its token, ARAW, which is instrumental in the availment of services and products within the platform. In return, they get token rewards which can be used to pay for other products and services in the physical world.
Araw Mobile Wallet. The tokens are stored in a wallet that can be transferred to friends and families as conveniently and reasonably priced as possible. The wallets have private keys that only the wallet owners know. By using the wallet services, customers also earn cashbacks which greatly help if you have families to support or simply on a tight budget.
Unified Rewards System. Among the features, this should be Araw’s utmost competitive advantage. It is unique just as it is highly valuable to consumers. With this unified rewards system, consumers can now shop across different stores and different brands and not worry that their rewards points will be counted differently. Since it’s collective and not distributed, earning points or achieving milestones becomes easy. One no longer needs to buy a heap of beauty products in order to avail beauty product rewards since the unified rewards system considers other purchases such as laundry products, kitchen ware, bathroom cleaners, and so on.
Certainly, every household is happy with Araw’s Rewards System. Now, it is convenient to be rewarded for grocery items along with hardware purchases. Indeed, the landscape of shopping has once again been changed.
For merchants, Araw also considers their needs and thus maintains an open API platform that allows customization of system to suit their specific needs and redistribution of tokens. Merchants won’t experience hassle in hiring for an external IT contractor, which is another expense because Araw is consumer-friendly just as it is merchant-friendly.
Token Sale
This revolutionary e-commerce development will possibly attract thousands, if not millions of consumers, because of its reward system, transparency, and cost effectiveness. For interested buyers, here are the details to know:
Ticker: ARAW
Price: 1 ARAW= 0.01 USD
Platform: ERC20
Soft Cap: 2,000,000 USD
Hard Cap: 25,000,000 USD
For more information and details on the project, find them by visiting their official website or reading their whitepaper. Be updated as to the current events happening during the ICO by visiting their social media pages.
Bitcointalk Thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3497194
Website: https://arawtoken.io/
Whitepaper: https://arawtoken.io/assets/araw_whitepaper.pdf?v1.7
Telegram: https://t.me/ArawTokenOfficial
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/arawtoken
Twitter: https://twitter.com/arawtoken
Medium: https://medium.com/@TheARAWToken
Author: Instaco
Author Link: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2050406
Nicely written. Up vote follow done. I will surely check out this project.