Of late, Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com has officially launched an applet on WeChat. The so-called ‘Smart Life’ applet is the first blockchain powered product traceability applet in the world.

By using this applet, users can retrieve goods that have been recorded on the blockchain and purchase them directly. After the the payment has been completed, users can scan the source tracking code on the product via WeChat to view all the traceability information of goods they purchase, including the entire process from raw material manufacturing to marketing process.

According to Smart Life, over 400 brands and 12,000 goods have participated in this platform, meanwhile, the traceability code visits hits 800,0000 by now.

Taking hairy crabs as an example, consumers are always concerned about whether the information of the breeding, growth and transportation processes are reliable. By using Smart Life, participants in the supply chain will record the breeding, fishing, processing, and logistics transportation information of each crab into the blockchain, so that the source of the crab can be tracked and cannot be tampered with. This may also have a deterrent effect on merchants.

The anti-counterfeiting traceability of commodity is the most important blockchain application scenario in Alibaba and JD’s competition. At present, Alibaba’s blockchain layout is faster and broader than JD.com.

Alibaba Cloud has developed a blockchain-based tool for Tmall’s Luxury Pavilion platform to track the origin and supply chain of the luxury goods in this May. In addition, Suning.com, the Fortune Global 500 company and one of China’s largest online-to-offline (O2O) smart retailer, has also launched a blockchain based traceability system.

Nevertheless, JD.com’s blockchain applet is probably the first case in the e-commerce industry to launch a gateway especially for traceability of goods. This initiative may improve customer satisfaction to some extent, and it will be an attractive channel to merchants.