Omnitude (ECOM) ICO Review

Credits: http://lifesacomicstrip.blogspot.my/2013/10/window-shopping.html
Everyone loves shopping. For my parents, shopping is going to a nearby emporium by car and visit the shops one after another. If they find something they like, they will go to the cashiers can pay for the item. For me and most of the millennial, shopping is unlock my phone while lying comfortably, open the e-commerce app like Amazon or Taobao (Alibaba) and browse from one product page to another. If I find something interesting, I will add it to my virtual shopping cart and pay with my credit card before closing the app.

While I indulge myself in online shopping, I have always been bothered by some problems. And I think everyone who has shopped online will understand the following problems.

Counterfeit products: if you key in “Swatch” in the search bar, there will have hundreds of Swatch products. Some of them are really cheap but you know that, most probably they are faked. The problem is sometimes you will pay for the actual price but still receive a counterfeit goods.
Delayed/Missing delivery status: although delivery tracking is a common feature in most of the e-commerce platforms, there is room for improvement. For instance, update the status or location more frequently, predict the date of arrival, etc.
Faked reviews: before I add a product into my shopping cart, I will go through the reviews first. Positive reviews can certainly increase my trust, but sometimes, some of the reviews are not real. They are posted by the merchants themselves to trick you into buying their products.

What is Omnitude?

E-commerce is soaring everywhere in the world. According to Statista, the industry was worth $2.3 trillion last year and it is expected to worth around $4.8 trillion by 2021. If someone is able to fixed the problems above, it will definitely be embraced widely by the industry.

Introducing Omnitude, a blockchain-based solution to the problems stated above. Omnitude is a middleware plug-and-play blockchain built on Hyperledger Fabric, it means that enterprises can simply integrate Omnitude’s ecosystem into their platforms without changing their existing systems.

Omnitude's Ecosystem

How does it work?

The Omnitude Ecosystem will comprise every entity that is involved in the sales, such as supplier, courier, merchant and customer.

Supply chain solution: Omnitude’s supply chain solution will be able to solve the problem of counterfeit products and missing delivery status. First of all, each product will have a unique and unforgeable cryptographic identifier. The “whole life” of the product before it reaches the customer’s hands will be recorded in Omnitude’s blockchain. As the products progress through the supply chain, a trusted “witness” will update the information to the blockchain. Customers will be able to track the fabrication history of the product and have real-time information about the package during delivery.

Single Identity: The Single Identity consists of Proof of Interaction (POI) and Single Reputation. Under the POI, every customer and merchant will have a public address, called Omnitude ID (OID). Customers will enter information about themselves once and it will be encrypted and recoded to the blockchain after verification. When a customer would like to leave a review, it will require the OIDs and private keys from both the customer and the merchant, to verify that a transaction has occurred between the two parties. The same scenario applies to the merchant and supplier too.
The Single Reputation is established through the OID. It lowers the uncertainty to the minimum and build trust among different parties.

Furthermore, the use of Omnitude tokens (ECOM) as payment can help enterprises to save money. Omnitude transaction fees will be much lower than gateway provider fees. For instance, Paypal charges around 2.9% per transaction, while the transfer fees for Ethereum can be as low as $1.

Team

The CEO and co-founder, Chris Painter has more than 10 years of experiences in e-commerce. He is the Managing Director of Pixel by Pixel, one of the biggest e-commerce companies in UK, specialized in digital marketing, design and development. (In fact, many other team members are also from this company)

Robert Belgrave is the co-founder and advisor. He is also the advisor of Dadi, a blockchain project that provides decentralized cloud computing services. In 2012, he founded Wirehive, a hosting consultancy focused on the needs of digital agencies and their clients. Currently, he is also Chair of BIMA (British Interactive Media Association) South.

The advisors include some very well-respected figures, like Nathan Christian, a serial entrepreneur with over 40 startups in his portfolio, Simon Cocking, the Editor in Chief at CryptoCoinNews and a top ranked member of the “People of Blockchain” by ICOBench.

Omnitude is planning to hire more developers when they have raised enough funds through the ICO.

Partnership

Two partnerships have been announced so far. Swisscom Blockchain AG, the largest IT infrastructure host in Switzerland and a global leader in blockchain advisory and development services, is one of their partners. Swisscom Blockchain will provide Omnitude with technical expertise to develop a scalable and interoperable solution.
Another partner of Omnitude is CS-Cart, one of the world’s most famous e-commerce platforms, used by more than 35000 stores worldwide. Omnitude can certainly benefit from their years of experiences in the e-commerce industry.

Token metrics

Omnitude is currently having the public sale. It will run until 31st May or until the hard cap is reached. There will be no bonus at this stage (the bonus during pre-sale was 15%). The minimum investment is $150 and the maximum investment is $50K per day.

Token: ECOM
Type: ERC20
Price: $0.46
Hard cap: 20.7M
Total supply: 100M
Available for token sale: 55M (55%)
Market cap: around 25.3M

Summary

Omnitude does seem to have a lot potential in the long term. The easy-to-deploy, plug-and-play solution is going to revolutionize the whole e-commerce industry. Let’s count on Omnitude to help get rid of all the faked products, faked accounts and faked reviews in Amazon and Taobao.

+ Innovative idea and no direct competitor
+ Experienced team and famous advisors
+ Partnerships already established
+ Proof of Concept (POC) available
+ E-commerce industry is expected to continue to grow rapidly
+ Vesting period of 5 years with 20% released each year for team and advisors
- Most of the team members are working on other projects along with Omnitude
- Possible competition from e-commerce or supply chain giants (Amazon, Alibaba, SAP, etc) in the future