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Marketplace
INS
INS - first global decentralized ecosystem directly connecting grocery manufacturers and consumers
At the moment it is unclear, since the INS platform has not yet been launched, how successfully it will be able to compete with other players - Amazon, which is actively developing food delivery segment (Amazon Fresh), eco-products (purchase of Whole Foods), reduces costs and seeks to digitize offline retail (a new format of stores without cashboxes); a large number of companies specializing in the delivery of products from farms; and also classic ones – markets, where manufacturers represent their goods, as well as wholesale centers.
The idea of INS set forth in the WP sounds very reasonable, but currently, it's just a concept - development of the platform will begin in Q1 2018; a full-fledged launch is scheduled for Q4 2018.
The WP contains list of 8 cities (Los Angeles, New York, London, Paris, Seoul, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Singapore), which, at the moment, are considered as a site for launching INS. Herewith, there is no detailed information - why they were chosen; current stage of negotiations for each of them. In company’s thesis "directly connect manufacturers and suppliers" there is an archness: INS’s model also includes fulfillment centers and couriers that must meet very strict requirements for storage and delivery of goods, since they work with food products, hence the high quality and punctuality of their work will undoubtedly affect to final cost of goods for the consumer. Also, in WP does not specify who exactly pays for delivery of goods to the end user. Considering delivery to fulfillment center: it is possible that a large manufacturer will simply not benefit from sending partially loaded vehicles to the fulfillment center - if there is no sufficient number of orders and the product will be perishable; nearly the same problem farmer can meet - the cost of delivery may be excessive for him.
Financial model is absent - so there is no way to see any planned structure of costs and revenues, nor predicted values of the economy per user. The INS team will receive 15% of all generated tokens, and there is any binding to KPI. Tokens will be issued only during ICO, additional emissions are not planned - this, in theory, may limit the company's scaling or lead to speculative growth of tokens’ prices, not related to business development.
All key positions, both in team and in advisory, are staffed by professionals with relevant experience; perhaps, in the future team will need CTO with experience of developing projects for retail segment. Peter Fedchenkov and Dmitry Zhulin are in parallel actively involved in management of Instamart, which can negatively affect to functioning of INS.
eMarketer predicts that by 2018 size of global online retail market will be $2,5 trillion – 8,8% of total retail market. Volume of sales via the Internet will grow by more than 1,5 times compared to 2015 (CAGR 2015-2018 - 16.1%). According to Syndy’s report, 16% of customers in Europe order grocery via the Internet; in 2013, their share was 13%. It is also assumed that to the end of 2018 size of the European e-grocery market will be €80 million. Based on researches from the Institute of Grocery Distribution, BCG and McKinsey, following trends in the online grocery for the next few years can be highlighted: • Almost 50% of customers are ready to spend their time shopping online instead of visiting offline stores • Growing popularity of the click&collect service. Advantages of this service for customers - ability to pick up the order on the same day, at a convenient time, without additional costs of delivery and waiting for courier, who, mostly, arrives at a fixed time interval • Constantly growing number of orders from smartphones and tablets, when customers do shopping in online stores. In addition to orders, buyers would like to make a shopping list, be able to change the order, contact support and compare prices in other stores • Customers expect more personalized discounts and offers – to receive it they are ready to provide personal data and information about past purchases. Also, in case they provide information about past purchases, customers would like to have the option of express purchase (auto-fillment of payment and delivery forms).
The INS platform is a decentralized marketplace that allows manufacturers to join, publish their products for sale, carry out promotion and loyalty campaigns, and get feedback from consumers. It enables consumers to order those products and facilitates the order fulfillment process. INS roles include: • INS token creation and the token launch to fund development and expansion • Establishment of a decentralized, fair and secure model for order execution • Development of smart contracts to run the order payment and fulfillment process • Release of the customer website and app, fulfillment app for fulfillment center workers and couriers, and web interfaces for manufacturers and fulfillment center operators • Creation of an effective incentive model for all parties to join the INS ecosystem • Development of an active marketing campaigns to ignite initial traction • Elaboration of the ecosystem’s regulatory aspects.
INS will become an intermediary between manufacturers, consumers and fulfillment operators. Manufacturer roles include: • Publish products; • Deliver products ordered by consumers to fulfillment centers; • Promote the INS ecosystem by bringing traffic via promotions of derived apps. Consumer roles include: • Search products listed by manufacturers, make orders and pay for them; • Participate in feedback requests; • Receive promotion, loyalty, referral and feedback rewards. Fulfillment center workers and couriers will: • Collect products delivered by manufacturers to fulfillment centers; • Assemble products into orders; • Pass assembled orders to couriers; • Pick up orders from fulfillment centers; • Deliver orders to consumers. INS will engage independent couriers and fulfillment center operators to join the ecosystem to ignite fast geographical expansion. In addition, it will decrease food miles, enabling consumers to unimpededly access local manufacturers, including farmers. INS will implement the effective "pull" system to reduce inventories and out-of-stocks that would decrease the food waste. INS is targeting to replace trade promotions with a more personalized, direct and efficient marketing, thus driving grocery prices down and facilitating the effective direct interaction between manufacturers and consumers.
50 million INS tokens can be generated, herewith, there is no token creation, minting or mining after the end of the ICO period. INS will create the INS Reserve Fund (20% of tokens) as the part of the token generation event with the primary goal to use these tokens as referral rewards to new customers and popularize the INS ecosystem. The Reserve Fund’s tokens distribution will start in 2019 and last for up to 2 years. INS team’s tokens are locked for 2 years with four 6-month vesting periods.
Key members of INS’s team: • Peter Fedchenkov - founder; previous experience - investment banking analyst and investment manager in Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, Baring Vostok Capital Partners (more than 5 years in total), co-founder of Instamart. Graduated from MBA in Harvard Business School in 2014; • Dmitry Zhulin - founder; previous experience – consultant, associate and investment manager in PwC, Rothschild, VTB Capital (more than 7 years in total), co-founder of Instamart. Graduated with PG Diploma from University of London; • Dmitry Khovratovich - Blockchain/Smart Contract Lead; has more than 10 years of experience in segments of cryptography and data protection (University of Luxemburg, Microsoft, Evernym); PhD from the University of Luxemburg; • Pavel Yakshankin - CTO; more than 5 years engaged in development of products based on JS, C, RoR.
