The next-gen e-commerce marketplace is about restoring the power back to the consumers, to the vendors/merchants/sellers and finally the OEMs. Ultimate mission is to disintermediate central power players who are altering the power equations to their benefit and provide superior shopping experience to the consumers/vendors in various ways.

Why is it a big deal? Check out this article as well. Decentralized E-Commerce to Tokenized Real Estate

How will disintermediation (replacing central players) take place?

The self-governed decentralization network with Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) will ensure the governance rules and regulations are set democratically using technology. This DAO will be able to govern a number of key initiatives including but not limited to

1. Who gets to display their product, sell them and how often - shows up in top searches or not
2. How will the advertising mechanisms be setup and sponsorships handled
3. How can the DAO mitigate suppression of smaller players in the realm of medium and large-scale players
4. What fee structure can be imposed for various activities - customer service, insurance, extended warranties etc.
5. How can the algorithms such as recommendation and competitive pricing strategies be regulated
6. Customer resolution policies
7. Remove any hidden fees and surcharges
8. Speedy logistics
9. Eliminating fraudulent transactions on the platform by vetting all players
10. Open and transparent communication channels across players
11. Fines for irregularities and ejection for fraudulent activities
12. Who can be part of DAO

Four Corner Participants

The four players in this arena will be

• Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) (Advertisers/Brands/Product Manufacturers)
• Vendors/merchants/suppliers/wholesalers who would like to market the products and eventually sell them
• Customers who like to research the market, historical product price, the customer experience and the quality of the product
• Finally, SimtelAI plays the role of the web3 technology platform provider that enables interaction between the above

Web3 Technology for Marketplace

• Next-Gen UI/UX for both customers and vendors
• User friendly mobile DApps for ultimate Customer Experience
• Advertising data to the marketers of the OEMs
• Binding technology contracts for buying/selling/resale/marketing
• Strong AI-driven privacy to ensure people research products in a safe environment
• Permission-driven marketing to ensure marketers are not intruding into people's lives
• Leveraging OpenAI/llama LLMs for researching products
• Competitive Pricing with ML models
• Automation for shipment deliveries, returns and customer service post delivery
• Focus on customer experience, high quality at lowest price points
• Stablecoins/eRupee connectivity

Consumers Delightful Shopping Experience

• One click product research across the market
• One click buy with myriad of options including BNPL schemes
• Multitude of payments
• Option to choose the shipping vendor
• Post-purchase customer service experience
• All this with complete privacy to the user, no one will ever know your email or phone to bother you with repeated calls

Merchants will be the biggest benefactors

• Branding for merchants or resellers
• Meritocracy for providing superior customer service
• Loyalty benefits for long-term platform usage
• Lowest Transaction fees in the industry due to efficient technology platform
• Support for technology/product taxonomy, sales and analytics
• Transpacrency across the spectrum
• Credible analytics data

OEMs

• Efficiency in marketing / targeting right customers
• D2C players will directly benefit from selling on this platform
• Transparency across the spectrum
• Credible analytics data

You can experience the MVP of the e-commerce marketplace by clicking below, we will shortly follow up by releasing the Vendor Website for onboarding vendors.

• You can register with new credentials and provide any feedback to info@simtel.ai
• Any bugs, please forgive us. This is the first iteration.
• Those who are interested in carrying out market research with the company, please reach out to ravi@simtel.ai
• Those who believe in what we do, join us.

NOTE: Product sales will happen on the website post User Acceptance Testing / Vendor onboarding.

Technology hosted on Azure Microsoft Platform, thanks a ton!

When you start to feel some things are crumbling and more pain points faced by small businesses, people in general, you know, its time for a change. What do we see in the current world?

• Corporate Monopolies and Hegemony, Price wars, Lose-Lose
• Power concentration in the hands of a few, less reliance on collective intelligence
• Inefficiencies due to siloes, bottlenecks

DeFI​

Decentralization - StableCoins​

A classic example of Stablecoin is USDT (Tether), where 1 Tether is close to 1 USD and there are many ways to create the value of the currency including Fiat-backed, Collateral-backed or Algorithmic to keep the value of stablecoin close to its native countries physical currency

Decentralization - Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC)​

Central Bank of each country is planning to issue or on pilot to issue CBDCs backed by physical currency of that country. The underlying technology is a blockchain or similar decntralization technology to ensure smooth operability across borders. Digital eRupee is oone such initiative by Rserve Bank oof India to tackle a host of cross-border trading problems

Decentralization - Cryptocurrency​

As most are aware, cryptocurrencies have cyclical boom annd bust periods for valuation of currencies such as Blockchain and Ethereum.

Decentralization - Web Applications (DApps)​

Smart contracts form the heart of Web3 Applications. They are decentralized contracts that get executed on interaction of users or events that lead to changes and triggers in the smart contracts.

DAOs​

Decentralized Autonoomoous Organizzations are sub-systems within the decentralized networks and establish governance/rules in a democratic manner, which is followed by its uers with rigor.

Between Smart Contracts and Crypto​

The combination of cryptos and smart contracts enable decentralized governance systems and Apps that drive the web3. This will eliminate central players, known as disintermediation and ensure equal opportunities for all users to participate in the activities without any FOMOs

"In god we trust; others must bring data" W. Edwards Deming

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Indian Real estate market is about to touch One Trillion USD by 2029 [1]. This market is powered by some excellent federal laws including Real Estate Regulation & Development Act (RERA) introduced in 2016 [2], Rent Control Act 1948 [4] supplemented with Model Tenancy Act 2021 [5]. However, the Indian Real estate market is still crippled with legacy systems, lack of governance, incorrect interpretation of laws and archaic practices that are hard to do away. Fraudsters are having a field day and genuine people often misuse these laws unknowlingly for their benefit due to lack of knowledge in the industry.

There are two key segments that can be broken down from the perspective of interaction

1. Construction and Purchase of Real Estate Property (Builders vs buyers)
2. Property Rentals and Lease (landlords vs tenants)

An important area where this is affecting the real estate industry is the residential and commercial rental property business. Both the landlord and tenants are facing significant challenges while renting the property. There is a huge deficit of Trust, Privacy and Transparency prevalent in the property rental market. The side effects are many and causing business loss and mental trauma to both sides of the aisle.

Cyberfraud Scams​

Unless an identity is verified online and in real, there is no real way to state that the person is the same. Most recently prevalent scam is Identity Theft where fraudsters take on an identity of an affluent propsective tenant/landlord and causing monetory loss who are gullible to these scams online. Landlords/Tenants end up following instructions from these scamsters and make digital payments to the scamsters. Especially, the older generation who are not aware of the digital systems fall prey to them more often.

Lack of Trust​

Neither the tenant is aware that the landlord is the true owner of the property and the property is not mortgaged in any way that can cause hindrance to tenants post signing the lease nor the landlord is aware the prospective tenant is genuine. From the landlord perspective, is the prospective tenant the ideal tenant and is genuinely the person who he/she claims to be?. Can they afford to pay the rent and on time, while maintaining the property in a good condition?. Landlord/Tenant recommendations, income proofs, ownership, affordability are some of the trust factors. For each of these scenarios, we need to establish some trust without infringing on the privacy of the individual. Trust comes from capturing data in the system that is inherently privacy-by-design and having contracts that clearly spell out the dos/donts and execute them objectively.

Lack of Transparency​

What is the current state of the rental market in a specific area, how do you carry out genuine research on what rent to offer in the market? How do you become aware of the legalities within the jurisdiction and follow the legal framework to the T? A smart binding contract that ensures all these are met?

Lack of Privacy​

During the interaction of renting out, data will be exchanged between property owners and tenants. Tenant needs to know that the property owner that he/she is dealing with is the real owner of the property to begin with. (Do you know what I mean? Fraudsters have a way there). Property is not under any kind of encumbrance and legally fully owned by the property owner to give out for rent. On the other hand what is important for landlords? Tenant need to be fully vetted before signing any kind of agreement or lease. Some guidelines are here [6]

Cross-Sell vs Advertising​

It is far better to advertise than to cross-sell. Why is that? Advertising is a form of permission-seeking, non-intrusive way to inform your userbase of the options they will have while they browse your platform. This then becomes affliate marketing, more lucrative than Cross-Sell. It is highly relevant, personalized and catering to their direct needs. We can achieve this with omni-channel targeting across multiple devices.

How can we help you power your platform​

Simtel AI can setup a trust and identity framework in a decentralized manner for running Real Estate businesses

• We bring superior customer experience for both landlords and tenants, in turn they will love your platform and you will see significant uptick in your userbase
• Customer base will become repeat customers for the quality you offer
• Remember that you will be eliminating the fear of renting out your property, this is the bulk of your customers painpoint
• We can power your platform with advertising that is state-of-the-art, novel and connected to key publishers

References​

[1] Mordor Intelligence Research & Advisory. (2023, June).
Real Estate Market in India Size & Share Analysis - Growth Trends & Forecasts (2024 - 2029).
Mordor Intelligence. Retrieved January 5, 2024 Source

[2] Real Estate Regulation and Development Act RERA

[3] A Comprehensive guide to Tenant Verification Process in India source

[4] Rent Control Act 1948 source

[5] The Model Tenancy Act, 2021: Resolution of Tenancy Disputes source

[6] A Comprehensive Guide on Tenant Verification Process in India source

Copyrighted Material​

1. Trust​

Trust is indispensible for business. All businesses have to rely on counterparties to carry out a buy/sell operation. Every business transaction involves two or more parties that are well-identified, complex interactions and comes with its own set of rules and regulation. A successful binding contract is one that considers legal aspects of governance, ensures it handles all scenarios and full automated without subjective interpretations

2. Privacy​

Privacy of an entity is clearly an important part of trust, simply becasue of the need to share information that is only relevant to the transaction. Data is the new oil, but when data leaks light up, it destroys the ecosystem and becomes a towering inferno. This is hard to understand for industries that have been setup with legacy systems and central players. THey are getting by everyday barely ensuring privacy and governance laws are met

3. AI Automation​

AI Automation ensures that we

4. Web3 Decentralization​

1. AAA Framework of Identity​

Authentication - To identify an individual on the internet to be truly a digital representation of the physical world that registered prior with the credentials Authorization - Tag and authorize an individual with minimum access to resources, so that a person can perform tasks as assigned by the administrator of the system Accounting - Monitor authenticated user behavior for a single session for compliance and analytical purposes

Lifecycle of an Identity​

A user will pass through some steps during the Identification and Authorized Session

• Identity Provisioning
• Authenication with Username/Password, unique strings, Q&A, Hardware/Software Unique Random Number generation
• Session Management and Authorization
• Reauthentication time-to-time
• Modification/enforcement/reinforcement of Authentication/Authorization Schemes
• Monitoring of being authenticated
• Ending of foormal session
• Deletion of an account

Currently, in Web 2.0, each central player is trying to maintain an individual database central server hosting larger number of users to manage authentication, while outsourcing some or all of authorization to IDP players.

Web3.0 is expected to be more universal across the internet, however the underlying architecture is managed by a decentralized network, not owned by any specific organization.

History of Identification​

To identify an individual in a digital landscape, identity was centralized and stored in a central server in a filesystem. As things evolved, username and password was introduced along with one-way hashing the user credentials along with salting (a technique for uniform random distribution), but still stored in filesystems Cryptography as a computer science subject evolved over time, and asymmetric cryptography in the form of private and public key are being used to login to intranet and internet. Further evolution of digital systems has led to use of One-time passwords through e-mail, phone and other dedicated hardware devices. The OTP had to be truly random in nature to avoid being hacked Since the millenium, Kerberos, OAuth1, OAuth2 and SAML protocols are developed and extended to keep in line with the evolving internet technologies to avoid hacking and identity theft, each of them are serving a different purpose.

OAuth 2.1​

Oauth is an authorization framework modeled as client-server architecture. If a user wants to access the resource owned by the Relying Party(RP), an Identity Provider(IDP) is an intermediary who can grant access to certain user attributes and send them to RP when RP forwards a user authorization to IDP. Oauth2 is the latest attempt too deprecate some RFCs by IETF and highlight some important concerns around security flaws in the OAuth 2.0, which exists since 2012

OIDC 2.0​

Open ID Connect 2.0 is the current popular authentication framework on which most websites are run. OIDC 2.0 sits on top of the OAuth framework and powers the authenciation and authorization across multiple resources, it could be several websites, internal resources of a company or external resources across a network.

Decentralized Identity​

It is expected that in the near future, we will have fully self-sovereign identity on permissioned blockhain network that can authenticate itself and be governed by the security systems setup within the network. The identity can be authenticated with newer ways using Zeo-Knowledge Proofs, for which there are already some implementations such as zk-snarks. It will be universal, self-sovereign and large data breaches are expected to be nullified. The decentralization helps in being authenticated with co-tenants on the network without the use of private or sensitive information. The privacy can be maintained because of lack of data share for authentication or other purposes.

Copyrighted Material​