NFTs / Web3 transactions will be commonplace in eCommerce storefronts in less than 5 years.
Customers will seamlessly buy products off of a web store through smart contract-enabled distributed applications (dApps) over the blockchain. Through self-executing code, these transactions are immutable and trustless, leading to a reduction in product returns, chargeback fees, and credit card fraud.
These smart contract-enabled products will be guaranteed by the blockchain to be cryptographically unique and secure, increasing trust between the merchant providing the product and its customers.
Customers will look at these transactions no different than any other transaction they would do over the internet. Because of this, we will see the mass adoption of the blockchain by consumers for their retail purchase needs.
In the future, every product bought or traded online could be a unique NFT token, which can easily be used to buy other products from any company across the internet.
ECommerce loyalty programs will be rewritten by Web3
There are many potential uses for NFTs in eCommerce stores – one of the most popular being the monetization of loyalty rewards programs, which typically give you points for every dollar you spend. These points can then be redeemed for certain products or discounts on future purchases, and they add up to big bonus items like free trips and electronics.
These programs are great for companies because of their ability to retain customers longer without needing to lower prices (which runs counterintuitive), but the loyalty rewards given out in these programs are never guaranteed to be used.
Companies give out these rewards in the hope that you may want them, but there is no way for them to enforce them. The consumer can decide whether or not they use their points at all, and if they do decide to redeem them, there is no guarantee that the value of those redeemed rewards will even exceed what the company had to put out for them in the first place.
NFTs will allow companies to create loyalty rewards that are far more valuable. Rather than just giving customers an arbitrary number of points based on their spending, they could issue NFT-based tokens that have a pre-defined value.
For example, let’s say a company rewards its best customers with 100 tokens for every $1000 they spend. These tokens could be used to buy a specific product from the eCommerce store, and since each token would have a predefined market value, it would be possible for customers to tell exactly how much those token are worth at any given time – making them far more valuable than traditional loyalty points.
The best part? Because the tokens would be on the blockchain, all of this could happen without any input from the company itself. Customers can purchase their tokens and redeem them as they see fit, and because those exact token values are recorded for everyone to see, there is now a way to enforce how much each reward is actually worth.
Marketing campaigns could be issued that offer a set value of tokens to consumers based on their spending habits to incentivize them to return, and because the value of those tokens would be guaranteed by the blockchain, customers wouldn’t have any need to worry about being scammed out of them.
Using cryptocurrencies in eCommerce stores will become just as common as accepting Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal.
Web3 is going to change the face of eCommerce – there’s no doubt about that. However, this technology won’t be limited to just those companies that want to use it. In fact, those who don’t update their eCommerce platforms to accept cryptocurrencies and NFTs will quickly find themselves losing business as the world moves past these archaic forms of payment.
Consumers want control over their purchases, and they want convenience – blockchain technology will inevitably allow both.