Rally Community,
The Rally core team has been working with the $SHOP team for many months now to enable a tokenized B2B2C experience for online brands and their customers. Using our previously approved Developer Bounty Program, we have granted the $SHOP team 500k worth of $RLY to execute on the below vision and roadmap.
The $SHOP project will lead to several tokens being launched directly on Rally.io that will later be bonded to a $SHOP token launched on the Rally Network. Some of these coins on Rally.io may be some of the biggest coins we’ve ever launched due to the size of some of $SHOP’s initial customers and roll out plans. We are incredibly excited about this opportunity based on the reasons outlined below and wanted to showcase the project with the Rally community and introduce the $SHOP team in case folks want to ask questions and learn more. See below for an intro video and a detailed overview of the project.
Phil Roselli - $SHOP Overview (Video) (note: having upload issues but should work if you download it)
Overview
$SHOP enables retailers to tokenize their points-based loyalty program to improve long-term working capital, increase customer lifetime value, reward employees, and acquire new customers.
One day, not having a token will be like not having a mobile website. In some ways, it’s even more natural for a retailer to have their own cryptocurrency, since many already have a currency in the form of an often lame loyalty program.
By building their loyalty program as a cryptocurrency, retailers will now be able to align incentives with their customers, acquire new customers, and access global crypto communities.
Our project will also address nuances retailers face when launching a loyalty program, ranging from systems integration with e-commerce platforms, accounting, marketing and rewards management, which is exactly what this new ecommerce venture in partnership with the Rally Network community will tackle.
Team
Shoptoken is backed by Justin Yoshimura, who is the founder/CEO of CSC Generation, a $1B start-up, and seed investor in a handful of pre-IPO start-ups including Wunderkind, Dave, Mux, and Imperfect Foods. Prior to CSC, he founded 500friends, the leading SaaS loyalty platform (customers include Sony, Loreal, Michael Kors, Eddie Bauer, Abercrombie, 1800flowers), which was acquired by Merkle.
ShopToken’s founding PM, Phil Roselli, spent 17 years in the financial industry and was a Product Manager at Bank of Montreal, where he developed his passion for crypto.
Product Roadmap
Overview of Rally.io launch
All retailers onboarded through $SHOP will have their own tokens launched on Rally.io. $SHOP will launch on the Rally Network but not on Rally.io for now to constrain variables.
Overview of what $SHOP is doing at the Rally Network level
ShopToken will enable retailers to launch a premium/paid loyalty program based on loyalty tokens where customers will pay an annual membership to unlock the ability to earn cash back in the brand’s own cryptocurrency with each order, which they can hold, sell or redeem for merchandise.
The business model for $SHOP is similar to Rally.io in that we will be launching our own token, called Shop Token, whose economy will drive real transactions and usage in the network.
Since retailers who launch their brand token will be bonded to the Shop Token, and the Shop Token will be bonded to Rally, it will drive value to the Rally Network.
We have three brands lined up to launch in the next quarter that together make over $400 million in revenue. Our API is fairly advanced in development, and we’ve now started creating a consumer-facing rewards app that can be easily installed in any e-commerce store.
The administration of the reward program, accounting and treasury management is done through a merchant portal.
Future phases
Our long-term vision is an open rewards ecosystem where consumers can earn and exchange brand tokens on the blockchain any time, anywhere in the world.
- Phase 1- Development of a native loyalty and rewards application for BigCommerce, Shopify, and Salesforce, through which a large share of the global ecommerce market is accessible excluding Amazon.
- Phase 2- Make the ShopToken API and SDK available to sophisticated retailers who prefer to design their own user experience.
- Phase 3- Expand to the travel industry where some of the largest opportunities for tokenized loyalty exist.
Key dates
- July - Development partnership with BigCommerce established
- September - Launch MVP and first brand token on Rally.io, $ZGLD
- October 2021 - $SHOP launches on Rally Network and $ZGLD is nested under $SHOP as a subtoken
- Dependent on Rally Network’s nested subcoin capability currently in development
- Late 2021 - Potentially expand to 1-2 more brands in time for the holidays to take advantage of high volumes; $SHOP achieves product-market fit
- Early 2022 - Publish ShopToken app on the BigCommerce app store including a marketing campaign to thousands of retailers
- Late 2022 - Launch ShopToken app on the Shopify app store (notional)
Customers
Initial customers
- Z Gallerie
- One Kings Lane
- (Confidential)
Pipeline
- BigCommerce Marketplace - 60,000 merchants in over 150 countries, ShopToken is a technology partner
- Top ecommerce platforms, e.g. Shopify, Magento and Salesforce
Projected transaction volume
We are projecting 10,000 to 20,000 transactions per month by the end of the first year.
$SHOP is a fantastic example of how the Rally Network / Rally.io can be extended to brands, not just creators and communities. More details will be provided as the project rolls out, but feel free to ask questions to the $SHOP team!