Carrefour increases sales thanks to Blockchain

While reports and statements are being intensified Blockchain, the technology on which the cryptocurrencies run makes important shots at the image level. The last in this sense is that deriving from the statements by Emmanuel Delerm, Carrefour project manager Blockchain, according to which the French retail giant would have registered a significant increase in sales attributed without hesitation to the method of tracking products that use this tool.
To better understand the terms of the matter, it should be remembered that Carrefour opted for the use of the Blockchain with the specific intention of tracing meat, milk and fruit from the farm to the supermarket, noting a significant increase in sales of these products, which was evidently not considered to be casual.
The tracking in question has been particularly successful in China, A country in which buyers have long been accustomed to scanning QR codes on product packaging, just to try to find the highest quality ones. Also in Italy e France, however, the initiative was greeted by excellent feedback from consumers who generally decide to dedicate no less than a minute and a half to reading the information on the labels of food products.

The partnership with IBM

The initiative to introduce tracking by making use of the opportunities secured in this sense by technology was achieved thanks to a collaboration with IBM Blockchain, which allows customers to scan a QR barcode on the product using their smartphone. A modus operandi that its main result is to obtain numerous information deemed decisive at the time of purchase, such as the date of collection and packaging, the location and the owner of the company, the duration of the transport and possible suggestions on the best way to prepare it.
The experiment was conducted on about twenty products including chicken, pork, milk and dairy products, eggs and oranges. A further 100 should soon be added to the lot, trying to give answers especially on products such as those reserved for children or the organic sector, for which consumers demand ever more stringent answers.
It should also be emphasized that the same internal sources of Carrefour report the fact that technology has the merit of creating a sort of "halo effect", which translates into a further advantage for the company: in fact, buyers feel the sensation of being able to trust a seller's product, the current trust also automatically extends to the other articles.
A series of considerations that seem to herald a further extension of the range of action of the Blockchain for the benefit of consumers, which, however, seems to register resistance on the other side of the barricade, that of the farmers, with regard to the sharing of information.

Tracking also in the fashion industry

Carrefour's initiative it seems to follow in broad terms what happened in the fashion sector, where in particular the luxury brand LVMH, which controls brands like Louis Vuitton e Christian Dior, has decided to give life to one Partnership with ConsenSys aimed at developing a Blockchain whose purpose would be to control the originality of garments and accessories. In this case, the tracking service would be provided by Aura, a system that allows absolute and total traceability of the products which could prove to be the best possible antidote to an old ballast, or counterfeit of which the great international fashion brands have been victims for decades, with the consequent loss of income. According to experts, LVMH's move has above all the task of guaranteeing those who want to have an effectively original product, without the fear of spending significant sums on counterfeit goods.

A remarkable endorsement for the Blockchain

The figure that emerges from what has been said so far is the significant growth in reputation for the entire Blockchain sector, of which the effective validity of a long series of services and operations not only of an economic and financial nature, but also linked to everyday life, emerges more and more. An evolution that allows technology to lay the foundations to extend its range of action more and more, as indeed recommended by some important recently published studies, starting from that of Gartner, which foresees an exponential growth of the proceeds of the sector at least until the 2025, even if in a quite contrasted picture.