White Paper: Universal Reward Protocol

53 Pages·2017·19.32 MB·English

White Paper:
Universal Reward Protocol
This paper is for information purposes only and does not constitute and is not intended to be an
offer of securities or any other financial or investment instrument in any jurisdiction.
Table of Contents
Abstract 3
About the Company 4-5
Market 6
Pain points and Problem Statement 7-10
Retailers 7
Shoppers 9
Opportunity 11-12
State of the market 13-15
Competitive landscape 16
Solution 17
Overview 18-19
Why Blockchain ? 20
Public blockchains as incentive machines 21
Decentralization and disintermediation 22
Data transparency 23-24
Retailer-side components 25-27
Redemption Campaign Manager 28-29
Shopper-side components 30-32
Smart Contracts Management 33-34
General structure of a dApp on the URP protocol 35-36
The Occi dApp: IoT and AI stack for in-store intelligence 37
Motivation 38
Data Collection 39
Data Fusion and in-store behavior intelligence 40-41
Proof-of-behavior Data API 42
Protocol decentralization and versatility 43
URP Token Role 44-45
Example of Reward Contract Execution 46
Roadmap 47
Token Sale 48
Use of funds 49
Team 50
Advisors 51
Disclaimer 52-53
White Paper v1.01 - Universal Reward Protocol
Abstract
In the past two decades, traditional retailers and brands have had to adapt to the rise of e-commerce
by diversifying distribution channels (website, click-and-collect, mobile apps). However, their main
strength remains their stores, where shoppers can see, touch and try the product before buying it,
which explains why 90% of retail sales still takes place in brick-and-mortar stores1.
This document presents a vision where modern retailers and brands have the ability to under-
stand, engage and reward visitors and consumers in a truly disruptive way. By bridging the gap
between online and offline, retailers will have access to as many insights about their visitors’
behavior, tastes and preferences as current leading e-commerce websites such as Amazon or
Alibaba.

This document presents Universal Reward Protocol, which provides a unique ecosystem for all
retailers to reward their customers for any type of shopping behavior, and for sharing the corres-
ponding Proof-of-Behavior data with the retailer. Retailers offer URP tokens as an incentive for
shoppers to interact along a desired behavior, and use the collected data to tailor personalized offers
through which the shoppers redeem their tokens.
All shopping behaviors, online and offline, such as store visits, online browsing, making purchases or
social media influencing, will be rewardable through URP.

Much of the retail industry’s advertising budget is spent on couponing and cashback, but the typical
lack of personalization of these campaigns has widened the gap between consumer expectations and
their actual in-store experience.

This requires a technical solution guaranteeing reach, data quality, and scalability. This document
will show how Universal Reward Protocol fulfills these requirements using blockchain technology.
1 US Census Bureau : https://www.census.gov/retail/mrts/www/data/pdf/ec_current.pdf
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White Paper v1.01 - Universal Reward Protocol
About the Company
Spinning off a research project out of UC Berkeley and Ecole Polytechnique in 2015, the founders be-
hind Universal Reward Protocol started building an end-to-end technology solution allowing physi-
cal retailers to identify and analyze each visitor’s shopping path and to interact with them before,
during and after their shopping. It provides retailers with previously inaccessible data, to improve
their understanding of the shoppers’ behavior and therefore their ability to serve and target them
better.
While pure players like Amazon and Alibaba have the technical tools to generate traffic and leverage
individual customer data to maximise conversion and customer satisfaction, physical retailers do not
have a clear view of their customers’ journey inside the store, or even who are the non-purchasing
visitors.
For the past three years, this technology, called Occi, has set out to change this situation by coupling
indoor geolocation, AI technology and data fusion to bridge the gap between online and offline
channels.

After spending its first year in incubation inside a large retail store from Auchan, giving its founders
irreplaceable field insights about the challenges of store operatives and the real-life constraints of
the technology they envisioned, the solution was launched in 2015 and is now live in more than
100,000 m2 of retail space in stores including:
2nd largest grocery retailer in France and China, with €44B revenues in 20112.

Biggest French grocery retailer, with €79B in revenues in 20173.
Leading French department store.

The solution is also used by brands like Nestlé,
largest food company in the world, with CHF89, 8B in revenues in 20174.
2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auchan
3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrefour
4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestl%C3%A9
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White Paper v1.01 - Universal Reward Protocol
About the Company
Technology in numbers:
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This document introduces Universal Reward Protocol, a blockchain-based protocol that disrupts the
world of shopper experience and redefines the relationship between shoppers, retailers and brands.

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White Paper v1.01 - Universal Reward Protocol
Market
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White Paper v1.01 - Universal Reward Protocol
Pain points
and Problem Statement
Retailers
The growth of physical retail has been slowing down for the past decade, with competition from
e-commerce and mobile purchases eating into their market shares and building new supply chain
models. The share of e-commerce has more than doubled in the past 7 years, and is expected to keep
growing into the 2020s5.
6000 9%
8%
5000
7%
of US dollars 4000 65%% of total sales
Sales, in billions 23000000 43%% Online sales as %
2%
1000
1%
0 0%
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
Online sales Offline sales Share of online
Evolution of US retail sales (2010-2017)
To try and defend their market shares, retailers have invested into new sales channels (deployment
of e-commerce website, acquisition of pure player competitors, launch of click & collect…), making it
increasingly difficult for them to track and manage the customer touch points and provide a seam-
less experience, because the shopper data collected by the different channels are stored in separate
silos. As such, none of them fully understand individual shopper needs.
5 US Census Bureau : https://www.census.gov/retail/index.html#ecommerce
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White Paper v1.01 - Universal Reward Protocol
Pain points and Problem Statement
The importance of mastering both online and offline channels while integrating them seamlessly
speaks for itself in recent strategic moves by some of the world’s biggest retailers:
online-to-offline:
• Amazon gained an instant brick-and-mortar presence in the U.S when it bought supermarket
chain Whole Foods Market for $13.4 billion in August 20166, and has launched its new Amazon
Go store format with no checkout required7.
• Chinese e-commerce platform Alibaba invested a $2.9 billion stake in China’s top grocer Sun Art
Retail, announcing a partnership with Auchan (biggest shareholder of Sun Art) to bring together
their respective offline and online expertise to explore new retail opportunities in China’s food
sector8.
offline-to-online:
• Walmart bought Jet.com in 2016 for $3.3 billion and online apparel retailer Bonobos in 2017
for $310 million9, confirming the group’s announced strategy to focus on developing its online
distribution channels.
• Target bought online delivery service Shipt for $550 million10 in 2017.
Contrary to pure players, physical retailers currently have no way of interacting directly and perso-
nally with shoppers outside of their loyalty program or traditional mass branding campaigns. Acti-
ons to attract new visitors and/or increase conversion rates require data about potential prospects.
However, physical retailers have no information about who visits their store or what they are
looking for. Therefore, it is much harder for them to personalize the communication with prospects
than for e-commerce website.
The asset that brick-and-mortar stores represent can be better leveraged if retailers are able to es-
tablish direct customized digital communications with shoppers and enter in a personal relationship
with each of them. Shopper experience can be revolutionized and made less of a chore and more of
a leisure.
6 New York Times, June 16th, 2017 : https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/16/business/dealbook/amazon-whole-foods.html
7 Amazon, 2018: https://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=16008589011
8 Reuters, Nov 20th 2017 : https://goo.gl/KT79JP
9 Forbes, July 5th 2017 : https://goo.gl/rUs7x8
10 USA Today, December 13th 2017 : https://goo.gl/h6q8A5
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White Paper v1.01 - Universal Reward Protocol
Pain points and Problem Statement
Shoppers
There are currently three main pain points for shoppers: lack of personalization of the shopping ex-
perience, data privacy, and multiple incompatible loyalty programs.
First of all, shoppers want a more personalized experience, in-store and online, and a seamless inte-
gration of their shopping activity11.
77% of shoppers agree that a 75% wanted to be rewarded
77% loyalty program should have 75% for engagement besides
personalized rewards. purchase.
The reinvention of the shopper experience is the biggest retail trend of this decade, because while
shopping online is more convenient and efficient, shoppers keep returning to physical stores be-
cause of the irreplaceable experience they get there. Touching and feeling the product are still a
crucial part of the purchase cycle, limiting the conversion rates of pure players. Shoppers are also
increasingly expecting brick-and-mortar to know more about them, for example expecting staff in
store to be aware of products they have purchased, and even browsed, online.
Data privacy is also a growing concern of citizens and shoppers around the world, and is especially
problematic in the relationship between consumers and large companies. The frequent scandals and
data leaks seen by large companies are only deteriorating trust, to a point where only 51% of Ameri-
cans still trust loyalty programs with their personal data12, and 75% are wary of their personal data
getting hacked. To improve this situation, the European Union is passing a new law, the General Data
Protection Regulation (GDPR), which among other things better defines the rules that companies
have to follow when dealing with their customers’ personal data. This regulation is a headache for
tech companies, but even more so for retailers who own large historical customer databases and will
face complex compliance issues in the very near future13.
11 HelloWorld, 2017 : https://helloworld.com/insights/whitepapers/2017-loyalty-barometer-report/
12 Colloquy Loyalty Census, 2017 : https://colloquy.com/
13 Olyver Wyman, 2017: https://goo.gl/593wrR
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White Paper v1.01 - Universal Reward Protocol
Pain points and Problem Statement
Finally, shoppers are surrounded by multiple loyalty program (banks, airlines, retail...). The average
U.S. household consumer is a member of 29+ programs, of which only 12 are actually used14. Only
24% of shoppers say they always use the reward they earn and 38% said they didn’t even know if
they have a reward available15. Out of those who had left a loyalty program in the past, 53% said it
was because it took too long to earn rewards16.
These complications arise from the non-fungibility of most loyalty rewards: a reward has to be
spent with the company that issued it. Shoppers suffer from this lack of fungibility and liquidity of
rewards, and are mostly not able to use them to satisfy their needs. They want a more personalized
reward program where they interact in a seamless and omnichannel way with retailers.
14 Colloquy, 2015 : https://www.colloquy.com/latest-news/2015-colloquy-loyalty-census
15 Code Broker, 2017 : https://goo.gl/enw9nm
16 HelloWorld, ibid
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White Paper v1.01 - Universal Reward Protocol