Decentralized finance (DeFi) is heating up. Amazon’s AWS Marketplace is offering Origin Protocol’s decentralized e-commerce platform Dshop to software-as-a-service customers (SaaS), as part of its partner network.

By Matthew Liu, cofounder of Origin Protocol and Kevin Goodspeed, a Senior Category Manager at AWS Marketplace

One of the emerging themes of the post-Web 2.0 world is decentralization, and more internet users are seeking greater control over their activities and data. Blockchain is a technology that enables the removal of traditional intermediaries from a vast array of applications. Blockchains provide a tamper-proof history of records and transactions in a series of blocks, or a ledger. Each block is cryptographically linked to a previous one, and any change to a block corrupts all subsequent blocks. Originally envisioned for peer-to-peer payments, some blockchains can also support business logic code, or smart contracts. Ethereum, created in 2015, is the largest blockchain that supports smart contracts, and it currently supports billions of dollars in economic activity and value.

Origin Protocol’s Dshop, available in AWS Marketplace, is an open platform for ecommerce that uses the Ethereum blockchain. Origin Protocol is an AWS Partner Network (APN) Technology Partner. Dshop has no setup costs and is 100% open source and customizable. Cryptocurrency payments are irreversible, peer-to-peer, and fast. Dshop supports cryptocurrency payments including OUSD, OGN, ETH, DAI, and all ERC-20 tokens, which reduces chargeback risk, cross-border payment overhead and delays, and processing fees.

In this post, I show how to create ecommerce storefronts that support cryptocurrency payments.

How it works

The entire front-end application logic, product database, and supporting media (such as product images) are hosted on the Dshop backend, which is an Amazon EC2 instance. Customers go through the typical purchase flow and pay via their Ethereum wallet at checkout. The merchant can configure their store to accept ETH, Ethereum’s native cryptocurrency, any Ethereum token that they want, or both. Dshop has integrations with Stripe and PayPal for merchants who want to accept traditional forms of payment. Dshop also supports cash and manual payment methods.

Customer and order details are encrypted with Pretty Good Privacy (PGP). The resulting hash and Ethereum payment transaction hash is sent to the Origin Dshop backend for verification. For a credit card payment, only the order details and transaction information are sent. This data is then downloaded and decrypted, which enables the merchant to send notification emails and fulfill orders.

Prerequisites

An AWS account

Solution walkthrough

Here is a step-by-step guide to launching a Dshop store. For more information, see the full documentation with images and support on GitHub.

Step 1: Deploying Dshop

Here is how to deploy your Dshop storefront. The first step involves subscribing to Dshop in AWS Marketplace and deploying it on an EC2 instance. Follow these steps to start the process of setting up your own Dshop.

Step 1.1 Subscribing to Dshop

1. Go to the Origin Protocol Dshop solution in AWS Marketplace.
2. Choose Continue to Subscribe.
3. Accept the AWS terms of service if necessary. After a few minutes, you see the license effective date instead of Pending.
4. Choose Continue to Configuration.
5. Choose the version that you want to run and the Region that you want to deploy to. The latest version is generally preferred.
6. Choose Continue to Launch.

Step 1.2 Deploying Dshop on the EC2 instance

1. For Choose Action, choose Launch from Website.
2. Choose your instance type. A minimum of 1 GB of RAM and 10 GB disk is recommended, which is equivalent to at least a t2.micro. Make sure that your security group has ports 80 and 443 open so that you can access the admin.
3. Select the VPC and subnet for the deployment of the new instance. The default settings are recommended. To use SSH access with the EC2 instance, choose a security group with port 22 open.
4. Choose a key pair from the available list.
5. If you do not have a key pair, go to the EC2 console. In the navigation pane, under NETWORK & SECURITY, choose Key Pairs. Choose Create key pair.
6. Return to the solution page and choose Launch.

Step 2: Configuring the domain and the Dshop node

Next, you configure the domain settings to work with the Dshop node. This allows visitors to navigate to your storefront. For more information, follow the instructions in Working with records in the Amazon Route 53 Developer Guide.

Step 2.1 Configuring the domain

1. Get the IP address assigned to your new instance from the EC2 console.
2. In the Route 53 console, select the zone you want to add this record to. The zone is your domain name. Choose Create record. You will create a new A record pointing at this address.
3. Choose Simple Routing.
4. Define the record, for example api.mydomain.com This is the backend administration URL and used as the shop’s backend. It is not the domain that your customers use to view the store.
5. Choose Create records.
6. In a few minutes, you can access the Dshop onboarding page by navigating to api.mydomain.com (or your chosen record) in your browser.

Step 2.1 Configuring the Dshop node

1. In a browser window, navigate to api.mydomain.com or your chosen record, and then enter your name and email address.
2. For the password, use the instance ID. For example, i-08bd2cff62ea24048.
3. In a new browser window, configure the server by following this. Use the EC2 instance ID as your initial password.

Stpe 3: Creating the Dshop store

After launching the Dshop node and configuring the domain, you can create and customize the Dshop storefront.

Step 3.1 Choosing the payment settings

1. In a new browser window, go to api.mydomain.com and enter your credentials.
2. Choose Settings and then Payments.
3. To accept cryptocurrency payments, under Cryptocurrency Payments, choose Connect or enter an Ethereum wallet address manually. Skip this step if you do not want to accept cryptocurrency payments.
4. Optionally, you can connect your Stripe or PayPal account and accept credit card payments. An Ethereum wallet isn’t required.
5. To save the settings and return to the home page, choose Update.

Step 3.2 Customizing the store

1. To create item listings, choose Products.
2. To create public collections of certain product types to help customers navigate your listings, choose Collections. These collections appear on the storefront.
3. To customize the look and feel of the store, choose Themes.
4. To configure third-party integrations, manage shipping and tax settings, or access other advanced features, choose Settings.
5. When you are finished, choose Publish Changes.

Cleanup

After you have finished, delete the deployed resources to prevent incurring ongoing costs. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Delete the EC2 instance that you set up to launch the Dshop.

2. Delete the Route 53 records associated with your Dshop.

Conclusion

In this blog post, I show how to launch a custom storefront that enables decentralized payments. You can accept cryptocurrency payments for your listings and start doing business globally without setting up accounts at payment processors or merchant banks.

Hernaldo Turrillo

Hernaldo Turrillo is a writer and author specialised in innovation, AI, DLT, SMEs, trading, investing and new trends in technology and business. He has been working for ztudium group since 2017. He is the editor of openbusinesscouncil.org, tradersdna.com, hedgethink.com, and writes regularly for intelligenthq.com, socialmediacouncil.eu. Hernaldo was born in Spain and finally settled in London, United Kingdom, after a few years of personal growth. Hernaldo finished his Journalism bachelor degree in the University of Seville, Spain, and began working as reporter in the newspaper, Europa Sur, writing about Politics and Society. He also worked as community manager and marketing advisor in Los Barrios, Spain. Innovation, technology, politics and economy are his main interests, with special focus on new trends and ethical projects. He enjoys finding himself getting lost in words, explaining what he understands from the world and helping others. Besides a journalist, he is also a thinker and proactive in digital transformation strategies. Knowledge and ideas have no limits.

The post DeFi And SaaS Applications: Decentralized e-commerce Platform Dshop To Join Amazon’s AWS Marketplace appeared first on OpenBusinessCouncil Directory.

The first thing that people don’t realize about Amazon is the power dynamic. Amazon has a lot of control over sellers, and unless you abide strictly by their rules, you run the risk of facing repercussions. They also tend to have a client-first approach, which is not always the most beneficial for sellers. Let’s take a look at some of the gurus won’t tell you about doing business with Amazon.

Working with Amazon is a Privilege

One thing that you should understand is that Amazon doesn’t need you. What it needs are happy customers. So, the customer will always be king with Amazon, and that’s that. That also means that returns can turn into complaints, and complaints can lead to investigations. And in some cases, these can turn into suspensions.

Suspensions can be scary, but they aren’t necessarily definitive. One of the things you could do is write a letter of appeal to Amazon. If you want to learn the whole process and have someone help you get your account back, you can work with teams like Thompson and Holt. They’re a good resource if you want to learn how to make an Amazon plan of action, which will outline your plans to correct the situation and help you escalate your appeal with a second Amazon appeal letter if your first one happens to get rejected. Having the right team in your corner could make the difference between keeping your account or losing it forever, so consider consulting a third-party if you have any questions about the process.

Competitors Might Play Dirty

Another thing people don’t tell you about Amazon is how dirty some competitors can be. Some will have armies of fake buyers, all with verified accounts. Others will try to undercut your price or use their marketing dollars to draw attention away from your products. It’s a war out there, and unless you’re ready to fight, your business will end up being just another casualty.

Revenue is Not Profit

Gurus love to show off with crazy looking revenue screenshots, and people just eat it up. But what they often don’t mention is the gap between their revenue and their profit. They don’t account for shipping and inventory fees, Amazon FBA fees, advertising costs, etc. In reality, most Amazon sellers make around a 30% margin on their products; and this is when traffic is coming organically.

Another thing that people don’t say is that you may not be able to turn a profit in your first month. That’s because you’ll need to build sales velocity to gain more attention, and one of the only ways to do so is to spend money on a campaign, which may end up eating into your margin.

Amazon is the world’s biggest e-commerce platform. But it does have its fair share of challenges, and the competition is tough, so be prepared.

Hernaldo Turrillo

Hernaldo Turrillo is a writer and author specialised in innovation, AI, DLT, SMEs, trading, investing and new trends in technology and business. He has been working for ztudium group since 2017. He is the editor of openbusinesscouncil.org, tradersdna.com, hedgethink.com, and writes regularly for intelligenthq.com, socialmediacouncil.eu. Hernaldo was born in Spain and finally settled in London, United Kingdom, after a few years of personal growth. Hernaldo finished his Journalism bachelor degree in the University of Seville, Spain, and began working as reporter in the newspaper, Europa Sur, writing about Politics and Society. He also worked as community manager and marketing advisor in Los Barrios, Spain. Innovation, technology, politics and economy are his main interests, with special focus on new trends and ethical projects. He enjoys finding himself getting lost in words, explaining what he understands from the world and helping others. Besides a journalist, he is also a thinker and proactive in digital transformation strategies. Knowledge and ideas have no limits.

The post 3 Things the Gurus Won’t Tell You About Doing Business on Amazon appeared first on OpenBusinessCouncil Directory.

Businesses all over the world had the necessary mission of making alliances with competitors with the objective of surviving the coronavirus pandemic – in some cases they have grown – but sharing excessive amounts of information with rivals comes with risks.

A new paper published in the journal Industrial Marketing Management has examined coopetition – cooperating with competitors – a strategy used to cope with the unique impact of COVID-19 on retailers, pharmaceutical companies, non-profit organisations and tech firms, such as Google and Amazon.

Dr James M. Crick, of Loughborough University, and his father Professor David Crick, of the University of Ottawa, have highlighted the implications of a more open marketplace between rivals – due to relaxed competition laws – and have made recommendations for business leaders to think about.

In the paper, Coopetition and COVID-19: Collaborative business-to-business marketing strategies in a pandemic crisis, they suggest that companies which choose to share resources such as information, data, expertise and other capabilities can yield higher levels of performance, meet unprecedented demand and operate efficient supply chains.

Coopetition can also help with simply surviving within a volatile market.

As well as the commercial benefits of coopetition, the paper also warns of the risks of collusion, both during the COVID outbreak and post-pandemic.

Industry bosses should be aware of the extent to which they are allowed to engage in cooperative partnerships with rivals, the authors say.

While laws in many countries have been relaxed to allow businesses to survive the pandemic, there are still regulations in force that can penalise firms for illegal collusive practices, such as forming monopolies and price-fixing.

Prof Crick and Dr Crick also say there will always be an element of competitiveness at play – even if it is only very small – during any coopetition strategy.

Businesses should not solely depend on their coopetition partners to survive.

Dr Crick, of the Loughborough School of Business and Economics, stated: “Owner-managers are encouraged to acknowledge that once this global pandemic is over, and the regulation of certain forms of coopetition are potentially enforced, it might be challenging to end their partnerships with rivals.

“Therefore, they should agree on the extent to which they will cooperate, vis-is, compete with their rivals in advance of changing circumstances.”

Finally, the paper indicates that businesses have to be aware that coopetition is a risky business-to-business marketing strategy and there could be negative outcomes, such as tension, lost intellectual property and diluted competitive advantages.

Dr Crick said: “To minimise the dark-sides of coopetition from occurring, it is recommended that owner-managers and functional-level employees should be vigilant for situations that involve coopetition partners behaving opportunistically.

“This will indicate when it is time to exit from these relationships.”

Prof Crick added: “Collectively, these managerial implications serve as actionable considerations for practitioners when implementing coopetition strategies during times of crisis, such as the COVID-19 outbreak.

“For clarity, coopetition has the potential to be a rewarding – performance-enhancing – business-to-business marketing strategy, but there are risks associated with companies working with untrustworthy competitors.

“Following these guidelines, if managed correctly, coopetition activities can be advantageous throughout a global emergency.”

Both academics said that more research needs to be carried out in order to fully understand the impact of coopetition during a global pandemic.

The paper lists a number of suggestions for future research, which include investigating the circumstances which led companies to cooperate, what were the experiences as these companies had and what were the outcomes.

Hernaldo Turrillo

Hernaldo Turrillo is a writer and author specialised in innovation, AI, DLT, SMEs, trading, investing and new trends in technology and business. He has been working for ztudium group since 2017. He is the editor of openbusinesscouncil.org, tradersdna.com, hedgethink.com, and writes regularly for intelligenthq.com, socialmediacouncil.eu. Hernaldo was born in Spain and finally settled in London, United Kingdom, after a few years of personal growth. Hernaldo finished his Journalism bachelor degree in the University of Seville, Spain, and began working as reporter in the newspaper, Europa Sur, writing about Politics and Society. He also worked as community manager and marketing advisor in Los Barrios, Spain. Innovation, technology, politics and economy are his main interests, with special focus on new trends and ethical projects. He enjoys finding himself getting lost in words, explaining what he understands from the world and helping others. Besides a journalist, he is also a thinker and proactive in digital transformation strategies. Knowledge and ideas have no limits.

The post Businesses Response To The Pandemic: Collaborations With Competitors appeared first on OpenBusinessCouncil Directory.

Why Google and Facebook are the biggest Open Research platforms?

When thinking about open research one might look primary at Universities: MIT, Standford, Cambridge,  Oxford, CBS and many other top universities worldwide. When looking at open research one can have a look at sophisticated innovative platforms getting real time data using very advanced software.

But after some time thinking one understands that the largest direct research and marketing platforms in the world are software companies, websites and social media platforms. Indeed, the most important research and data can now be found in massive platforms such as the search engine  Google; the multiple product platform that recently embarked into social media as well. Also, not forgetting  the massive Social media platform – Facebook. If you have some doubts I will try to explain why I have this conclusion.

Defining Open research

Defining Open research as an activity conducted in the spirit of free and open source software brings us to the idea of looking at both platforms in which most of the data is based. When not based there the data somehow is agregated and united there. Much like open source schemes that are built around a source code that is made public. Both Google and Facebook are at the moment matrix places and destinies for where the main drivers for research somehow can be found and data mined.

Having considered that the central theme of open research is to make clear accounts of the methodology freely available via the web, and online devices along with, any data or results extracted or derived from them of course one needs to bare in mind these two platforms as the main central platforms of research. Looking at these platforms as  matrix places of research that permit a massively distributed collaboration, and one in which anyone may participate at any level of a research project.

Dramatic and broad technological and economic shift in which software is keyto research and business

At present the world is in the middle of a dramatic and broad technological and economic shift where software companies, namelly web based or somehow powered by social technologies and venture international capital are poised to take over large sections of the economy. This creates new oportunities and challenges for old business models and changes the way research has been conducted. In this landscape the paper of research is still in its premium form based in Universities, research centers and scholar organisations of course. However the shift is that these places and the premium global centers for research have to look at the real time data of search engines and the social media web to be on the top of what are the trends and new developments. It is in here that Open research is taking its place and becoming the only way to go in parallel with ways of looking into change management and open business. Also it is here that Facebook and Google have been increasingly being part of the picture. But we can add as well other online critical tools for Open Research: Wikipedia, Amazon, LinkedIn, Slideshare, Twitter, Apple iTunes and Apps, open source tools and so forth.

A blurred world where economy works in parallel with crisis innovation: Open Research is  the new driver

Major businesses and industries are increasingly being run on as online services based on software. Most industries are shifting to this format: from entertainment, agriculture,  national organisations such as finance and banking to defense or any other area that can vary from B2B to B2C. Many of the winners in this new blurred world where economy works in parallel with crisis, innovation and research are somehow Silicon Valley-style entrepreneurial technology companies that are invading and overturning established industry structures. Over the next years many more industries will be disrupted by fast research and new developments in software, online services, social business trends and data. It is in here that Open reserach can have and needs to be present as a driver of accelaration for knowledge learning and map new trends, oportunites and solutions to problems and issues.

Over two billion people now use the broadband Internet, up from perhaps 50 million a decade ago. Facebook reach is getting close to one billion users and it is expected at least five billion people worldwide to own smartphones; giving every individual with such a phone instant access to the full power of the Internet and Google hegemonic search results (and also Baidu and Yandex) every moment of every day.

On the back end Open Research needs to aim at making the world of information, knowledge and science more visible and accessible pooling together pieces of information from multiple platforms namelly Google and Facebook that constitute a vast knowledge base about who we all are, and what moves the world forward.

Maria Fonseca

Maria Fonseca is the Editor and Infographic Artist for IntelligentHQ. She is also a thought leader writing about social innovation, sharing economy, social business, and the commons. Aside her work for IntelligentHQ, Maria Fonseca is a visual artist and filmmaker that has exhibited widely in international events such as Manifesta 5, Sao Paulo Biennial, Photo Espana, Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Joshibi University and many others. She concluded her PhD on essayistic filmmaking , taken at University of Westminster in London and is preparing her post doc that will explore the links between creativity and the sharing economy.

The post Are Google and Facebook the biggest Open Research platforms? appeared first on OpenBusinessCouncil Directory.