SOMA’s pilot program, explained

SOMA to partner with luxury brands in Q1 2019

Featured watch photo credit Manufacture Royale. Adapted from the original.

Abstract: With select industry partners in the luxury watch industry, and potentially other adjacent sectors, SOMA will run a pilot program in preparation for our next phase — that of global scaling. The pilot is slated to begin by the end of Q1 2019 and run through Q2.

“ Sipilän Kello is excited to participate in SOMA’s pilot program. There is a lot of value for us on two fronts. Firstly, their social marketplace will expand our ability to reach customers and find resellers via the SOMA Rewarding System. Secondly, SOMA’s provenance-tracking solution will allow us to verify the authenticity of our fine watches for our customers.” — Mika Sipila, Sipilän Kello; Helsinki, Finland.

Preparation

SOMA will onboard a select group of companies whose products will be on offer in the SOMA marketplace.

By first attracting merchant participants (retailers and manufacturers of watches and other luxury items), SOMA will have populated the marketplace with relevant content including items items for sale, prior to initiating the user acquisition portion of the campaign.

Background & context

SOMA is a new blockchain-based ecommerce platform. Core innovations include a robust protocol for validating provenance and item history, as well as the integration of social functionality to encourage the formation of user communities around common ‘lifestyle’ products. Users are also able to monetize social influence by performing value-add tasks for sellers on the platform. For more detailed info on the value these functions provide to the enterprise seller, please see our use case study, “How a watchmaker could harness SOMA for tracking & distribution.”

In Q2 2018, SOMA launched a demo Android app that allowed ‘dummy’ transactions with the goal of collecting community feedback for improving on future iterations. With the launch of the pilot program, that application will go ‘live’; actual transactions will be facilitated.

Additionally, SOMA will release a web application prior to the start of the pilot program. The web app will be accessed via any modern internet browser and will be an improved version of the initial Android demo, incorporating lessons learned and opening up Soma to iOS users.

The web application will also feature a retail management system for enterprise sellers to populate, monitor, and manage their SOMA sales.

Why luxury brands and retailers should participate

Retailers & manufacturers of watches and other luxury items will benefit from the SOMA pilot program as follows:

· Early exposure on a platform that aims to be the future of ecommerce — first-mover advantage to establish visibility and following before SOMA’s landscape becomes more crowded with sellers

· Zero cost: companies participating in our pilot program keep all (minus a negligible transaction fee) of their profits.

· Easy affiliate marketing via SOMA’s blockchain-based reselling feature that operates with ‘smart contracts’ in an automated way

· Data collection via SOMA’s tracking protocol

· Verification of authenticity via SOMA’s tracking protocol

· PR value in being an early blockchain adopter in the luxury goods retail space

Why buyers will want to participate

Consumers will create profiles and share interests. They will be able to buy and sell instantaneously and have their transactions validated on the blockchain. They will have the ability to interact with one another, to build communities, to establish their personal brand, and to grow a following. Many of these functions will be like those of existing social media platforms; the SOMA difference is that of integrating this influence into a monetized social marketplace. Specifically, SOMA offers the following:

· Assurance that products are genuine via SOMA’s provenance-tracking protocol

· Visibility into an item’s history via blockchain-based immutable records

· Participate in social communities built around a common passion (i.e., horology), while establishing a reputation within that field that can potentially be monetized

· Buy and sell items that may be hard to encounter elsewhere

· Become an early participant in what aims to be the leading luxury goods marketplace of the future

Goals and objectives of the pilot program

By the end of Q2 2019, SOMA aims to have achieved the following via the pilot program:

· Proven a viable revenue model

· Shown a clear path to scaling globally

· Attracted and retained a core user base of watch enthusiasts (and possibly other luxury items)

· Attracted and retained industry partners

· Iterated on the platform and its various incarnations (Android, web, etc) and improved them based on usage and feedback

· Positioned itself as a contender to lead the field of next-gen marketplaces

**Frequently asked questions**

How do I get accepted into the program?

Contact us at partners@soma.co and we will take a look at your product and assess whether it’s a fit for our pilot.

If I participate in the pilot program, will it cost me anything?

Partners will not pay to be part of our pilot.

Will SOMA take a percentage of sales?

Transaction fees will range from negligible to very cheap when compared to those of traditional ecommerce platforms.

What if I’m in a different industry (outside of luxury items) but want to participate?

It doesn’t hurt to ask. Contact partners@soma.co and we will evaluate on a case-by-case basis.

How will payment be handled?

The beauty of blockchain is that payments can be immediate and secure via cryptocurrency; these cryptocurrencies can be easily exchanged for USD, GBP, EUR, or most other so-called ‘fiat’ currencies (currencies issued by a national government) on a third-party exchange such as Coinbase or Gemini. Additionally, SOMA is exploring the feasibility of direct fiat payments on our platform. In either case, payment will be directly to your secure blockchain-based encrypted SOMA wallet (in the case of crypto) or to your chosen account (if SOMA integrates fiat and you choose fiat payment).

Isn’t crypto dangerous, a scam, volatile in price, or otherwise undesirable as payment?

Cryptocurrencies can see high price fluctuations, especially over longer time horizons. When used as a transaction vehicle (as opposed to an investment vehicle), however, sellers can mitigate their exposure to volatility by exchanging their cryptocurrency for fiat or diversifying it across a basket of cryptocurrencies. Cryptocurrencies are fast, secure, and auditable — and transactions conducted therewith are immutably recorded as part of an item’s history.

Will the reselling function be operational for the pilot?

Absolutely! Sellers, including retailers and manufacturers, can build a de facto ‘affiliate marketing’ program by allowing other users to resell their products. The beauty of this feature is that commissions are paid out by smart contract and require no admin or HR on the part of sellers!

Can I choose whether to allow reselling?

Reselling is at the seller’s discretion and can be enabled on a per-item basis or can be selected for all your items if desired. For items with reselling enabled, the word ‘RESELLING’ appears across the item thumbnail, notifying other users that you are open to a reselling offer.

If I choose to allow reselling, what commission will I pay to the reseller?

A: The would-be reseller will request to resell your item and will be presented with a slider representing a desired commission. They then submit it as a request and you can choose to accept. Alternatively, you can make a counteroffer via the built-in chat feature.

About SOMA

On legacy ecommerce platforms, anonymous usernames and depersonalized storefronts strip trade interactions of an important social element. Additionally, buyers lack a definitive way to ensure the authenticity of items. Enter SOMA. Our Heimdall Protocol stops forgeries and counterfeiting by validating ownership and provenance history on the blockchain. Social media elements bring personalization and interaction to trade, and allow users to monetize social influence, while a rewards system incentivizes beneficial collaboration and ensures that value-adding services are compensated. Soma is a free-market ecosystem — free of market manipulation, price-fixing, gouging, and bloat.

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