In the case of fraudulent merchants, who collect payment but neglect to ship the product, Omnitude will manage a staged release of payment depending on the stage of delivery, which should reduce these unfortunate situations.
Additionally, Omnitude proposes to improve the supply chain tracking situation currently experienced by most users, where everything up until the final leg of shipping is completely opaque. This system will allow items or shipments to be tracked as they move through the chain from raw materials, to components, to finished products, all the way to final delivery. Trusted ‘witnesses’ will identify the location of the tagged items and write it to the blockchain where it will be impossible to edit or delete. These location transactions will then trigger payment release transactions to shippers and suppliers as the appropriate milestones are met.
The huge amount of fraud and wasted money in this space makes a product like this a compelling opportunity for vendors to increase their profit margins and better serve their customers. The customer facing bits, from single sign on to product tracking may well provide additional income and revenue to the vendors who implement such systems, due to a lowered bar of entry and increased consumer confidence.
Funding allocation:
One nice feature of this program is that it doesn’t particularly require a critical mass of participants before the system begins to function. This means that slow growth, while not ideal, could definitely be overcome. Marketing is identified as the second largest selection of funding allocation, and that should help keep user acquisition high, though the allocation could be higher.
The largest portion is the platform itself, which is great, as it indicates an understanding that without rocksolid technology, programs like this will not likely succeed. Having such a strong investment in the platform is a very good sign that the program will continue to grow and expand as time goes on and the funding continues to be applied to the ecosystem.
It’s particularly interesting the breadth of the platform; instead of attacking a single point, single sign on, identity management, or supply chain tracking, they’ve elected to take a bigger bite and attack all of these simultaneously. This should provide much more of a ‘turnkey’ platform for merchants, who can take advantage of an entire e-commerce suite instead of just implementing the features piecemeal from different vendors. This seems to bode well and the unification here will also benefit consumers, as the reduced time to market for merchants will reduce friction for consumers faster and make the whole process easier.
Also interesting is the focus on combating fraud. Ecommerce fraud is tremendous and comes in many forms, from identity theft mentioned above to fraudulent chargebacks to even a simple claim that a package that was delivered wasn’t. The amount of money able to be saved, on a per merchant basis is rather impressive, and should provide a strong argument for implementation of the protocol. From the consumer side, reigning in fraudulent merchants and sellers should increase consumer confidence and keep the rate of growth for ecommerce increasing. This is a project with the potential to bring very real value to the entire ecommerce space, for all participants, from suppliers through to consumers.
While this is no easy challenge, the focus on technology and implementation is a great start to overcoming the challenge, and the team and advisors appear to be strong and properly positioned to make this project a success.
