The global online clothes and footwear market that exists now, besides big advantages, has many downsides that are the reason of stagnation, entirely limiting its further development in some cases.
Unlike offline, this market has a greater degree of their information closeness. Its location which is a virtual world often allows hiding information about many aspects of the process, from the production of market goods to selling online to the buyer.
Transparency of such producers/consumer chains is the primary market problem that concerns not only the direct participants but also regulators beyond the market.
The end-buyer that purchases the goods in the online market is extremely interested in the openness of information, no less interest comes from the sellers.
What can the blockchain do on the clothes and footwear online market?
For the online footwear and clothes customer, it is most interesting whether it will fit in size and be comfortable or not. Earlier this information was considered more probabilistic in nature. Customers of online stores couldn’t count on 100% size fitting of clothes and shoes. This reality of online stores scares many Internet users nowadays.
The solution is to create a service that would allow customers to have information about matching sizes in advance. In other words, we are talking about a service that is able to do a remote fitting same as direct, physical. Sounds like a pure fiction? But it’s not like that. Technology does not stand still.
Imigize has made a technological breakthrough in clothes and shoes inner volume 3D measurement methods (PCT patents). When purchasing online, it allows remotely compare it with customer’s anthropometric parameters.
Creating an individual comfort profile, the selection algorithm based on the neural network allows achieving high accuracy. We can say that Imigize service is a virtual fitting that can be compared with a try-on in a traditional store if we are talking about results.
Imigize service generates the vast valuable database related to online sales on clothes and footwear: size comfort and fitting degree, to begin with, then the customer’s anthropometric and digital items profiles, supply and sales statistics, ratings on all market components, etc. To use this information in full access is the dream of not only buyers and sellers, but also manufacturers of clothes and shoes.
Imigize opens this scope of information for the market on the basis of the blockchain technology. The Imigize Service Blockchain platform consolidates and structures the data and gives access to all clothes and footwear market participants within new blockchain ecosystem. It will be a system-forming factor in this process.
Each participant will be able to utilize this information and produce the most effective ways of partaking in market activity.
Online customers of footwear and clothes will know whether an item fits in size or not before purchasing. They will have a personalized comfort evaluation of an item, which will determine the conversion rate in online stores. They will be able to constantly evaluate the changing range of goods by the comfort and quality services of online stores parameters.
Online sellers will be able to manipulate the sales, knowing the size fitting degree, and improve marketing and service, purchasing and placing only high-demand products for production.
Manufacturers will have the ability to integrate transaction data and statistics of certain clothes and footwear categories that vary based on age, gender, ethnic and other characteristics. They can monitor and regulate the online process of production based on the demand from these groups of buyers;
Dealers and distributors will be able to shape supplies, correlating them with the results of fittings and purchases, responding rapidly to changes in supply and demand in the consumer market.
Rating companies will be able to monitor the market condition in real time and provide the necessary evaluation information to clients, sellers and manufacturers of footwear and clothes.
State regulators will begin using Imigize Service Blockchain data to ensure environmental safety and efficiency of technologies for the production of shoes, attempts of goods falsification prevention, anti-fraud efficiency improvements, illegal shipments, etc.
Financial institutions and investors will be able to obtain more detailed and up-to-date information for effective financing.
All relationships between ecosystem participants are subject to the Smart-contracts. Smart contracts are not only transactions but also other agreements concluded fully in digital form. The fulfilment is guaranteed by computer protocols, the possibility and legitimacy of operations is automatically checked in accordance with the established standard.
As previously noted, the information about sales, supply, customer reviews, etc. nowadays is not open-ended and often it is held by some market players. But dispersed data can change the situation. Now each member can obtain and track the history of information messages.
Such a dispersed approach changes the procedure of rating on the market. It is known that some manufacturers and retailers often take decisions affecting the overall infrastructure of the market, such as dumping, production of staple and cheap goods, pricing games, etc.
But smart-contracts provide endless opportunities for structuring the rights and responsibilities of all participants, which allows creating different interaction formats with the use of identification at all stages. Dispersed technologies guarantee reliable remote identification of the origin of negative factors and help to create a real member ranking on the basis of verification of his actions.
Blockchain practical advantages.
The online market will develop open, transparent and trusting relationships between all participants. First of all, buyers of footwear and clothes will trust sellers because they will have the primary information about purchased goods: comfort and fitting degree.
This will take the pressure off of the market, which slowed its growth dynamics.
The market will be able to get rid of unnecessary intermediaries, it will become safer, more transparent and thus more liquid. And the operations on the online market will become easier, faster and cheaper. There will be additional self-regulation functions.
High level of the operations security is an important blockchain technology usability. All records in the dispersed information system cannot be removed or changed after the fact of their introduction, which reduces the possibility of fraud and theft. It will require hacking a number of computers from thousands to millions.
Transparency is the main blockchain evaluative dimension. All ecosystem participants will gain managed access to all information documents to check the accuracy and authenticity of origin of each of them using open blockchain registers. This increased transparency makes dispersed information more liquid and can contribute to inflow into the market of, for example, consulting capital.
Efficiency is achievable through low transaction costs and increased the speed of operations. For example, payments between clothes and footwear manufacturers and suppliers and shops, which previously took up to a week, can be reduced to several minutes, with transaction costs reduced to a minimum.
Market regulation mechanisms will also change. Although state regulators will receive an open access to market information, the very nature of the blockchain outdistances the government regulation.
The many advantages of the distributed information data foresee the actions of external regulatory mechanisms, for example, companies convicted of failure to comply with established rules are excluded from cooperation by the low rating, which is determined through open access to all operations.
All of these innovations ensure greater efficiency of market functioning and will surely affect the pace and scope of online sales of clothes and shoes in the coming years. New blockchain technology scaling will allow predicting the transformation of the market by transitioning most of it to the Internet.
According to forecasts, the system will be unified and will serve the entire world market of clothes and shoes, providing numerous benefits to all stakeholders by 2025-2030.