What is Hoarding?
The term ‘hoarding’ refers to participants of the supply chain buying large amounts of a product and stowing it away to earn benefits from future price rises. Industries in various fields such as fashion, jewelry, electronic appliances, etc have incurred extensive losses due to hoarding.
How Does Hoarding Affect a Supply Chain?
One challenge that is widely criticized for creating shortages of goods and services in a global economy is ‘hoarding’ of products. The negative impact of hoarding results in price controls, fixed exchange rates, and a shortage of goods. The shortage of goods and services has cost many people lives as panicked buyers began hoarding medicines and essential items such as sanitizer, toilet papers, and even necessary medical supplies like an oxygen tank. Many laws exist in India to prevent unfair practices such as the
- The Essential Commodities Act in 1955
- The Drugs and Cosmetics Act in 1940
- The Prevention of Black Marketing and Maintenance of Supplies of Essential Commodities Act in 1980
Other than the implementation of laws, a business can also adopt blockchain technology as an efficient way to fight against hoarding. The disruption of a supply chain creates an increase in prices and consumers face shortages not only in high-end luxury products. It affects basic commodities as well such as medicines, raw materials, etc.
Mechanism of Blokchi
Blokchi is a blockchain-based, NFT-enabled technology that helps regulate the efficiency of participants within a supply chain. This aims to end the concerns of brands and businesses that are prey to counterfeit, hoarding, product recall. It also helps improve the reputation of a brand, retains consumers, enhances the visibility of a supply chain, etc. Let’s take a look at how Blokchi helps build efficiency within a supply chain.
Anti-hoarding by Blokchi ensures that there rarely are shortages in the inventory and the supply chain be transparent and flexible to ensure the smooth progress of the product’s journey.
Other Packaging Solutions of Blokchi
Besides anti-hoarding by Blokchi, the ingenious innovation has eight other packaging solutions. These include
Anti-Counterfeit Packaging Solution:
Anti-counterfeit by Blokchi prevents the entry of faux products into a supply chain by enabling the chain to be transparent. This results in providing complete knowledge of the whereabouts of a product and learning which participant is involved in illegal activities.
Retaining Brand Integrity:
A brand’s reputation is held by a few parameters which include
- Are the consumers satisfied with the product?
- Is a consumer’s demand met?
- Is there a supply of counterfeit products observed?
- Is a member of the supply chain involved in suspicious activities?
- Is a product traceable?
- Can one product be identified from another?
Product Recall:
If a participant of the supply chain finds out that a particular product is either defective or expired, Blokchi ensures that the traceability of the product is swift and seamless.
Consumer Behavioral Insights:
Blokchi aims to allow a business to take an insight into consumers’ shopping behavior. This way a business predicts the needs of a consumer are met. A customer feels accepted when brands and businesses produce goods according to the consumers’ requirements. This improves retention of customers, builds stronger relations with the customers, and increases customer satisfaction rate.
Customer Loyalty Program:
Typically, a customer maintains loyalty to one brand for a particular product through a famous marketing strategy used by small and large-scale companies alike. Incentivizing a product by providing rewards is a great way to increase customer engagement beyond a point of frequent purchase. Programs such as ‘refer-a-friend’ offer consumers discounts on their next purchase if their friends sign up, reward points, free perks (delivery services), VIP passes, and much more. This encourages repeat business, enhances customer lifetime value. All the while creating a differentiator with competitors.
Serialization:
A product serialization refers to assigning each product with a unique identity. The identity can be affixed by an NFT-enabled smart tagging system which includes QR codes or RFID tags. After a product is serialized, a product item can easily be traced by scanning the code. Assigning unique identity to products can open a door to increased brand loyalty and marketing. By scanning a product, customers can participate in loyalty programs.
End-to-End Track and Trace:
From the beginning of the supply chain to the end of the supply chain, Blokchi implements an end-to-end track and trace packaging solution to identify the product’s location, prevent a participant from hoarding, or partaking in the illegal distribution of goods.
Inventory Management:
The biggest benefit for a business in using an inventory management solution by Blokchi is that it makes the process of inventory management easier, saves time and money as well. With the active management by Blokchi, a business’s inventory remains updated reporting increased sales. The increased transparency reports the time the item is received, packed, manufactured, etc. Inventory management solution entails a user with a report if a business is overstocked or under-stocked.
