Blockchain and retail customer experience

Regardless of the industry you are in, you may have heard the word blockchain spoken with subjection, or you may feel like bitcoin is the best investment in the world or a tool for criminals. The blockchain itself, however, is often misunderstood.

The blockchain actually, can benefit almost any industry from restaurants to digital signage producers.

Let's take a look at what is blockchain and how it can help transform the digital signage industry.

What's the blockchain?

The blockchain is a decentralized ledger, which is immutable and completely transparent.

Bitcoin wiki describes it as: "a transaction database shared by all the nodes participating in a system: a complete copy of the chain of blocks of a currency contains all the transactions never performed in the currency and with this information we can find out how much value belonged to each address at any point in the story. "

This means that the blockchain serves as a public ledger, in which each transaction is recorded and recorded by a group of users. It is the backbone of bitcoin, a decentralized virtual currency.

Users confirm transactions through a process known as mining, where users lend the processing power of the computer to solve mathematical equations to confirm and register bitcoin transactions.

While bitcoin was the first to use blockchain, it is not the only app for this. Ethereum has also recently developed its blockchain, and each cryptocurrency also uses some form of the blockchain.

What can it be used for?

You could think of yourself: all this sounds great, but what does the blockchain do for me? I do not use virtual currency. Well, the blockchain has a number of uses.

For one, it can enable smart contracts, which Wikipedia defines as "an information protocol to facilitate, verify or digitally impose the negotiation or execution of a contract, allow the execution of credible transactions without third parties parts. "

Ethereum's blockchain can help automate this process by pushing data to a contract generated by the user to be executed on a certain date. This can be incredibly useful for banks or other financial institutions looking to automate large international contracts.

Other uses of the blockchain include: identity management, automated compliance, secure voting, supply chain management and decentralized ownership.

means for the digital signage industry?

There are several ways in which blockchain can help improve digital signage. For example, it can improve the digital market outside national markets by providing secure peer-to-peer trading.

Users on DOOH marketplaces could easily exchange advertising space from one platform to another, and each transaction will be accurately recorded on the blockchain.

At a deeper level, users can more accurately monitor advertisements and their effectiveness with the blockchain. A company, MetaX has developed a tool called adchain that allows the client to find out where an advertisement took place, who saw it, the amount of budget used and conversion rates. Basically it uses the blockchain as a tracker to see where an advertisement goes.

Another company called VODXS is using the blockchain in a unique way: with the sinking point of digital signage. The company has developed displays to be placed in bathroom sinks in restaurants, bars and shopping centers. The displays offer video content when customers wash their hands.
VODXS uses blockchain technology in the backend to confirm the impression of each user.

Why you should be in the vanguard

The blockchain has not reached the point of no return of general acceptance, yet. And there are a lot of unpleasant "businesses" trying to capitalize on the blockchain craze by running various scams.

That said, this technology has the potential to revolutionize the way many industries do business. That's why you need to be at the forefront of this technology.

When it comes to new technologies, if you stay behind you will fail. Blockbuster, for example, failed when it came late to the streaming game. You need to start researching this technology to find out how it can affect and improve your business.

Where blockchain fits into the retail customer experience

The blockchain will serve primarily in two main ways, providing greater transparency to customers and giving customers greater control over their loyalty programs.

With supply chains powered by blockchain, customers can get complete information about where their product comes from and how it came to the storefront. They can easily see, for example, if a piece of meat has been handled properly or if their coffee beans have been ethically purchased.

Retailers can also use blockchain-based loyalty programs to improve customer experience. These loyalty programs can generate tokens, which users can exchange or sell with each other or redeem for purchases.

While blockchain is still on the horizon, big retailers like Wal-Mart are already using blockchain-supplied supply chains. It's just a matter of time before each retailer uses the blockchain in some way.

Benefits that the blockchain provides to retail

As mentioned above, retailers may have better supply chain management due to the blockchain. Because blockchain technology is inherently unchangeable, retailers can safely track products from production to the storefront. This is particularly useful for preventing epidemics such as e-coli in food products.

The system can also help retailers with identity management, confirming a customer's identity on the blockchain or the identity of an employee for security reasons.

The smart contract the technology behind Ethereum's blockchain can also help retailers make financial contracts more easily than before

For more information, see Blockchain Tech News, an expert source for blockchain comments.