S2E10c #NRFLive SPECIAL - web3 & blockchain with zblocks

When you hear, “web3” and “blockchain”, if you’re like most retailers you might panic or realize that you just don’t know how to leverage these technologies in your retail business. Do you gain operational efficiencies? Reduce costs? Improve supply chain visibility? Deliver a better customer experience? Increase brand loyalty? Or is it all the above if done with the right technology partner?

This episode continues our special podcast cross-over series, #NRFLive, with the This Week In Innovation podcast. In Part 3, hosts Ricardo Belmar and Jeff Roster speak with the co-founder and Chief Revenue Officer of zblocks, Max Cacheux. Zblocks mission is to be retailers’ the easy button for web3 and blockchain! Max walks Jeff and Ricardo through numerous web3 use cases on customer experience, gated commerce, and loyalty programs, plus a few surprises. If you have questions about web3 & blockchain, you’ll find answers in this episode, recorded live & in-person during #NRF2023!

A special thanks to our sponsor Avanade for making this series possible by providing an amazing recording space in their NRF lounge.

Listen, or watch on YouTube, to see how much Jeff and Ricardo learn from Max about web3 & blockchain! Regular cohost Casey Golden also joins Ricardo for a quick introduction and recap.

News alert! We’ve moved up to #18 on the Feedspot Top 60 Best Retail podcasts list - please consider giving us a 5-star review in Apple Podcasts! With your help, we’ll move our way up the Top 20! Leave us a review & be mentioned in future episodes! https://blog.feedspot.com/retail_podcasts/

Meet your regular hosts, helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:

Ricardo Belmar, a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2023, 2022 & 2021, RIS News Top Movers and Shakers in Retail for 2021, a Top 12 ecommerce influencer, advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation, and director partner marketing advisor for retail & consumer goods at Microsoft.

Casey Golden, CEO of Luxlock, and RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2023. Obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, now slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech!

Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring E-Motive, and Overclocked, from the album Beat Hype, written by Hestron Mimms, published by Imuno. 

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TRANSCRIPT

S2E10c web3 & blockchain with zblocks

[00:00:00] ​

[00:00:00] Show Intro 

[00:00:00] Ricardo Belmar: Hello and welcome to a special season two episode 10 part three of the Retail Razor Show. This is the third of our multi-part series recorded live and in person at the N R F 2023 Show in January. I'm your host, Ricardo Belmar.

[00:00:35] Casey Golden: And I'm your co-host, Casey Golden. Welcome to the Retail Razor Show, retail's favorite podcast for product junkies, commerce technologists, and everyone else in retail and retail tech alike. And once again, the special bonus. Welcome N R F fans to our hot take, hashtag N R F Live miniseries.

[00:00:56] Ricardo Belmar: So Casey, we are continuing our special [00:01:00] podcast Crossover Event with Jeff Foster and this week and innovation podcast. We recorded this series live and in person at the N R F Show in the fabulous lounge space. Our good friends at Avena graciously allowed us to use overlooking the main expo floor.

[00:01:14] Casey Golden: Special shout out to our friends and sponsors at Avanade for giving you and Jeff such an amazing space.

[00:01:21] Ricardo Belmar: Absolutely. So let's jump right in. Casey, this episode is one that is near and dear to your heart. It is all about web three and taking the complexity out of it for retailers and consumers.

[00:01:33] Casey Golden: I love it. I'm a big fan of a velvet rope strategy, so naturally I'm an advocate for gated commerce experiences and more efficient ways to manage VIPs and loyalty in general.

[00:01:45] Ricardo Belmar: Well, you are going to love this discussion. Jeff and I had with Max Cacheux, co-founder of Z Blocks. Max talks to us about how Z Blocks is enabling so many use cases for retailers from gated content to NFTs and loyalty [00:02:00] programs in a way that any consumer can participate in, not just as Max calls them crypto enthusiasts and for the retailer, wait until you hear what some of the special sauce Max has cooked up for them to make everything web three as easy as pressing a button.

[00:02:13] Casey Golden: Very cool, and I know our listeners have to be dying to get into the discussion now.

[00:02:20] Ricardo Belmar: I agree. So let's jump in and listen to our interview with Max Cacheux, co-founder of zblocks. Soon to be everyone's new web three best friend.

[00:02:30] Casey Golden: Looking forward to hearing this one. ​

[00:02:37] zblocks Interview

[00:02:37] Ricardo Belmar: Hey everyone. We are back at the NRF 2023 Show, continuing our bonus series. I'm Ricardo Belmar and I'm here with a special guest host Jeff Roster from This Week in Innovation. How you doing, Jeff?

[00:02:50] Jeff Roster: I am tired.

[00:02:51] Ricardo Belmar: It's like, I don't remember. I was gonna say which day it is, but I've lost track. I just know it's the last

[00:02:56] Jeff Roster: It's the last day.

[00:02:57] Well, actually it's not, some of us are still [00:03:00] working tomorrow. We have meetings Wednesday.

[00:03:03] Ricardo Belmar: on Wednesday, so I can't even say

[00:03:05] Jeff Roster: but I am exhausted, but I'm elated. Yeah, 

[00:03:08] Ricardo Belmar: exactly. 

[00:03:09] Jeff Roster: show, fantastic energy.

[00:03:11] Ricardo Belmar: I'm with you on that.

[00:03:12] Jeff Roster: just an amazing, amazing celebration of retail and the, the energy and the startup community, the energy and the, the, the tech landscape.

[00:03:21] Fantastic.

[00:03:22] Ricardo Belmar: Yep. I agree. Well, and, and to that end, we have one of those tech stars with us today. So I'm gonna introduce Max Cacheux, co-founder of Z Blocks. Max, how are you?

[00:03:33] Maxence Cacheux: Very good. Great to meet you. Thanks for hosting me.

[00:03:35] Ricardo Belmar: Absolutely. Thank you for joining us.

[00:03:37] So why don't we just start, and Max, I'm gonna let you give your own introduction. Tell us a little bit about yourself, about Z Blocks, how Z Blocks came to be and, and what it is that you're doing for retailers.

[00:03:47] Maxence Cacheux: Absolutely. So thanks for your opportunity. So I'm Max from Z Blocks. I'm one of the, one of the cofounder at Z Blocks and I've been in the tech space and enterprise space for more than 20 years.

[00:03:57] And, What Z Blocks is [00:04:00] about, is about making blockchain adoption easy for enterprises, right? So we come from an enterprise and tech background at Z Blocks together with the, the co-founders. And what we realized more than a year ago when we started Z Blocks, is that there are many barriers for enterprises to add blockchain.

[00:04:17] And we have created a platform for them running on Azure that give them the ability to build blockchain application quickly and easily without the complexity. So we're abstracting that complexity for them.

[00:04:28] Jeff Roster: So you're taking the complexity out of blockchain?

[00:04:32] Okay. , that's a very . Bold statement.

[00:04:34] Maxence Cacheux: We want to be the easy button for web3

[00:04:36] Jeff Roster: Okay.

[00:04:37] Ricardo Belmar: I like that. The easy button for web three. Well,

[00:04:39] Jeff Roster: what, you can be, I'll be your Guinea pig cuz I'm trying to do web three and there there's zero anything easy. So I'll be your Guinea pig to see.

[00:04:46] Maxence Cacheux: There, there are many barriers for adoption. So we look at solving them. So,

[00:04:50] Ricardo Belmar: Okay, well, let me back into that a little bit then. Talk to us a little bit about what are the, the most common complexities that hold retailers back from being [00:05:00]involved in a web three project That, that would speak to what you're simplifying essentially.

[00:05:04] Maxence Cacheux: So I'll give you challenges that are applied to retailers, but also other verticals, right? I'm seeing five key challenge and these are like the five barriers that we saw that when started, right? So number one, you have a lack of blockchain developers, right?

[00:05:17] They're hard to find, they're expensive. Blockchain programming language are complex. Number two web three World is different from the Web two world. I mean, we're talking about crypto wallet. You need your private key, your public keys and retailers and others are used to email ID. So how do you reconcile?

[00:05:34] number three, retailers are looking at building in blockchain, but they want to connect to their existing systems, right? So how do you do that? How do you connect the, the two worlds together, right? And then a lot of them are looking at blockchains and seeing different protocols that are available. You have multiple layer one, right?

[00:05:50] And which one should I choose for what use case? Can I build once and deploy another? Right? And finally, when you talk to their cfo, it's, I don't want crypto on the balance sheet. [00:06:00]So you need to solve all these barriers for them and make it easy for them to develop. Right? And that's where we come with our, with our platform.

[00:06:07] Jeff Roster: So give us an example of what that would look like.

[00:06:09] Maxence Cacheux: So one of the vertical use case that we built on the platform is a solution leveraging NFT or digital tokens that give them the ability to engage with consumers and they can engage with consumers in acquisition, in retention, and leveraging these digital token for loyalty program retention.

[00:06:30] And we're seeing a lot of potential of the NFT technology for such use cases, right? Because it's becoming harder to acquire customers for them. So using web three, using blockchain for retention, for loyalty has a lot of potential and we're seeing a lot of very interesting use case around that and we're helping them in that space.

[00:06:49] Ricardo Belmar: give me an idea what, when you have this conversation with a retailer around loyalty, I, I'm thinking of, and, and I'm, I guess this, the example here is you'd be talking to a retailer who [00:07:00] wants to add value into their loyalty program beyond, you know, let's say just offering someone discounts, which so many loyalty programs do.

[00:07:06] But your, I'm guessing your message to them is, if by leveraging this technology, You're gonna have something much more tangible to offer in, in a loyalty program.

[00:07:15] Maxence Cacheux: Yes. Yes. So we're, we're not telling them, you know, to throw away their existing program. What we are telling them is, Hey, if you add this additional layer, leveraging this additonal layer of blockchain, there's some very interesting use case that you can do, right?

[00:07:29] So if you look at for example, the utility that you can provide with digital token, you can provide gated access to certain content. So it could be a website where I'm giving access to v i p customer to a pre-sales event, right? And only the NFT holder are able to access it, right? It could be an NFT or a token that give you access to an event in real life or in a, in the digital, right?

[00:07:52] So, so on the very interesting use case around utility. The transferability, right? It's one of the key [00:08:00] property of these tokens makes some very interesting business cases, right? So you could have a membership that I can transfer to, friends that I could potentially resell. You could potentially collect royalty from the resell of that membership.

[00:08:13] Right. So there's some very interesting use case around the transferability. What we're seeing as well is around customers that are creating collectibles and they're rewarding with these customers, with the collectibles, and there's a gamification around this collectible that can be exchange traded as a way to engage your existing community consumers as well.

[00:08:33] Ricardo Belmar: I like this concept of, you know, the ability to offer the gated access to things or, or use that as a token to access things in, in, in real life events. Do, do you have some examples of, of retailers that are, are pursuing that and how they're, you know, what's the impact of them doing that?

[00:08:48] Is what, what? I'm curious, you know, for example, when you have this conversation with the retailer , will they ask you, how do I measure the impact of offering this? How do I know this is gonna create more loyalty with my customer versus what I'm [00:09:00] doing today?

[00:09:01] Maxence Cacheux: Yes. So that's, that's definitely a quick key question that they have. Right. Who is going to bring some move the needle versus my existing web two program?

[00:09:09] So in many of this cases, it's very new. We might not know in advance, right? So what we do is that we're able to connect these NFTs and this blockchain solution to the existing CRM and marketing tools.

[00:09:25] So they have the ability to do ab testing and compare what is the engagement of of this token, right?

[00:09:31] So for example, we're giving them the ability to mint NFT that can be dynamically updated with different offers and push notification and token gated access. And they can provide some very interesting you know, token gate access to these customers, right? The token gated access that we see that makes sense is access to special offers e-com website or access to a special , community room where you can meet [00:10:00] other consumers that have the same interest as you so that you get a sense of community ownership as well.

[00:10:05] So that's also an interesting use cases that we're seeing there.

[00:10:08] Jeff Roster: how much work does it take to do that? So in other words, let's say and I'm gonna watch the San Francisco 49ers win this Sunday. And it's just, it's such a logical thing to say, if I'm gonna go to that game, why don't I just have coupons, programs, unique content related to that game? And why don't I send it out?

[00:10:27] Why don't I brand that? Why don't I, you know Levi's Stadium is in Silicon Valley. Intel's all over it. Why wouldn't they create programs or something specific to that event? How hard is it to do that?

[00:10:39] Maxence Cacheux: So we're making it very easy for the brand or the retailer to create this campaign, right?

[00:10:44] So starting from a one click minting, right? So you just upload the content that you want. The NFT is being minted very easily. We can distribute that across different channel. And we make it easy so that a hundred percent of consumers are able to claim it. Right. [00:11:00] So I don't know if some of you have have been trying to claim in nft it's quite complex because you need to set up crypto wallet and keys.

[00:11:06] So here we just do one click claim

[00:11:08] Jeff Roster: never tried to claim an NFT for 

[00:11:11] Ricardo Belmar: because of that complexity.

[00:11:13] Jeff Roster: here.

[00:11:14] Maxence Cacheux: Exactly. So here, that's what we looked at because when we talked to brands and retailers say, Hey, I want to engage a hundred percent of the customers. I don't want to talk to the crypto enthusiast, so, we're making it very easy. It could be a QR code on a big dashboard. It could be a, a text message, anything. And in one click with a social media id, you're able to get the nft either arrive in the wallet, you might not even know it's blockchain. Just look like a coupon

[00:11:40] Jeff Roster: Why would I care?

[00:11:41] Maxence Cacheux: You won't care.

[00:11:41] Jeff Roster: a consumer, why would I care?

[00:11:42] Maxence Cacheux: You don't care. Right. And, and we're able to update that dynamically. So we provide them with the platform to build these use cases. Right. And then based on what they want to do how they want to engage a consumer. We give them the ability to remotely update that token and provide different experiences while getting all the analytics [00:12:00] from these experiences from the blockchain back to their existing marketing tool.

[00:12:04] Right? So back to the AB testing. How can I compare that versus my web two marketing campaign? What is the clickthrough rate? How are people engaging? Are they taking the offer? Are they, are they transferring it or not? So what is working, what is not working? So this analytics is really important for them, and we provide that to them as part of the platform.

[00:12:23] Jeff Roster: so in that scenario, fully built out, when would I get that nft? When I walk in the stadium, do I scan a barcode? Does it come to me via text? Do I have to give, how do I, how do I actually start that whole process

[00:12:34] Maxence Cacheux: imagine you arrive in the stadium. There is a big jumbotron, there's a big QR code. You scan that QR code on the jumbotron.

[00:12:42] Then one click access. You log in with your social media id. It could be Instagram, Facebook, gmail, outlook series.

[00:12:50] You get the NFT to write in the wallet, the wallet gets automatically created. You don't even know you are in the blockchain. So you have that token and it will be a branded wallet that is made [00:13:00] available to the brand.

[00:13:01] And that could also be made available as part of the existing app. So we have a way to integrate with any existing mobile application from from the customer, right? So the onboarding is seamless.

[00:13:13] Like a web two experience, right? Because we want to have everybody on board. We don't want to lose anybody, right?

[00:13:18] So we're not only talking to the crypto enthusiast there. 

[00:13:21] Jeff Roster: and the verification is in the social media login or the id Okay.

[00:13:26] Maxence Cacheux: media login. And then what's interesting is that suddenly you can see from your crm, Hey, I have all this person who logged in, I have their social media. And now you have a direct relationship with.

[00:13:38] So you can further engage them, right? So you can engage em during the event. After the event, they can receive an additional NFT that is memorabilia of that event that they attended, which could be a collectible. We would have value because that was an important event. There could be a video of the event, try to add, right?

[00:13:55] And then they have the possibility to upsell you and engage for further events, right? It's [00:14:00] really, we're talking from a switch from CRM to orm Ownership Relationship management. Where?

[00:14:06] Jeff Roster: om, yeah. Ownership

[00:14:07] Maxence Cacheux: owner, relationship 

[00:14:09] Ricardo Belmar: Owner relationship Management 

[00:14:10] Jeff Roster: that one?

[00:14:11] Ricardo Belmar: I can't say that I have, that's a new term on me. I'm, I'm paying attention here. I'm, I'm learning.

[00:14:16] Jeff Roster: got a new 

[00:14:17] Maxence Cacheux: new

[00:14:17] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. ORM.

[00:14:18] Maxence Cacheux: in the future. Brands are going to need to have a direct relationship with the wallet of consumers. Right. In the past you had a connect with the emails, but more, we're missing more. Many of our emails today, not everybody's reading

[00:14:32] Jeff Roster: well by design,

[00:14:33] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. Right. Yeah. By design. Yeah.

[00:14:35] Jeff Roster: just so you know, I am doing that on purpose, my friend, right?

[00:14:39] Maxence Cacheux: So in the future, so having a connection to the wallet of consumer is going to be very important, right. The direct consumers. Without the platform in the middle, right? Having first party data in that direct interaction with your customers and also getting them the ability to choose what they share with you and how they engage with you.

[00:14:57] Jeff Roster: I have [00:15:00] garbage, 95, 1 thirty4@yahoo.com that I give to retailers because they have proven to me they are not trustworthy with not spamming me. So you're telling me, I, I, now I'm gonna give access to a wallet, so, so I can't get rid of them. That's, I guess from a consumer that's a concern.

[00:15:17] Maxence Cacheux: Yeah. But you will, you will accept to claim that NFT or that digital token because there is a utility in it, right?

[00:15:25] If I'm a retailer and I'm just minting and distributed nft, you need to provide goodies, right? So if you're not providing value to that consumer, and with the roadmap of features that provide benefits to them, they're not going to be interested to engage with you. Right. So that's super important.

[00:15:42] Jeff Roster: So okay, interesting 

[00:15:43] Ricardo Belmar: Okay. 

[00:15:44] So from the consumer's perspective on this, if I go through, I'm engaging with a retailer.

[00:15:50] I've, I've done this. I, I'm not a crypto enthusiast, so I, I'm, I'm thrilled that all, I don't have to know anything about that, right. In order to engage in this manner I'm curious what, so what happens [00:16:00] as that same consumer goes to another retailer, Do they know that they have this crypto wallet that this digital wallet that's been created, are they taking that with them?

[00:16:09] Does that sit with the re that retailer they got it from, or how, how does that part of this work for the consumer?

[00:16:15] Maxence Cacheux: Yes. So typically what we provide, we give the ability for the retailer to mint and distribute these tokens very easily to any consumer. And when you click on that link that you receive either on social media or via text message or via email, right? Or in a jumbotron on a QR code that you see on a product, right? One click, you have a wallet that gets automatically created.

[00:16:39] This wallet is a branded wallet, right? So it'll be a retailer branded wallet, and it gives the ability for the retailer to engage you through that wallet, right? So it's like a a direct connection between you as a retailer and the, and the consumer. Right? As a consumer, if I'm a crypto knowledgeable person or I already [00:17:00] have a wallet, I could potentially transfer that to another wallet where I have all my NFT or tokens, right?

[00:17:05] But another retailers would not know that a retailer send me that token, right? So there's no sharing right of this data.

[00:17:13] Jeff Roster: So how many wallets would I have? Hundreds.

[00:17:17] Maxence Cacheux: You could have multiples. You may have you may have a issue of the brand. You love the retailer. You may have that, that wallet for that retailers like you have different loyalty card today, right? In your wallet. So you could have different different NFT wallet with different experience at the retailers are providing

[00:17:31] Jeff Roster: so NFT wallet by store or a brand or Oh, okay.

[00:17:36] Interesting.

[00:17:37] Maxence Cacheux: The key is for the, the retailer really to provide utility to keep you engaged, right?

[00:17:42] There needs to be a benefit for me to come back, being part of a community, getting coupon discount invitation tokens points that I can exchange. So this is really the, the key for a retailer to engage consumers. Right?

[00:17:55] Jeff Roster: how far off do you see mainline adoption? You know, maybe 30, 40% of [00:18:00] retailers doing something like this.

[00:18:01] Maxence Cacheux: So I think in this year we're going to see definitely a lot of movement in that space. You probably have heard about Starbucks.

[00:18:09] Ricardo Belmar: right

[00:18:10] Maxence Cacheux: starbucks have an amazing web two loyalty program and they decided to revamp that and basically add the web three layers to provide new experience to their consumer.

[00:18:20] Program called Starbuck all this is going to be launched this year, and everybody's looking at that. There's still some secrecy here on that, but I think it's going to be a lighthouse. For many retailers and many B2C brands many of the, the brands that we're talking to, they are really looking at creating token based loyalty programs, right?

[00:18:38] Airlines hotels. So it's happening across the ball in the B2C space, right? Because. It can allow you to create new experiences that are not possible in web two today. And it also provide an additional layer of security. Again, the transferability of these tokens make it very interesting in terms of new use cases as well.

[00:18:58] So

[00:18:59] Jeff Roster: Okay. [00:19:00]

[00:19:00] Ricardo Belmar: All right. Interesting.

[00:19:00] Jeff Roster: It's a pretty, pretty aggressive prediction. We'll see..

[00:19:03] Maxence Cacheux: Yeah.

[00:19:04] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. Okay.

[00:19:05] Jeff Roster: be watching that

[00:19:06] Maxence Cacheux: But we need as Satya Nadella was saying few days back, we need a chat GPT moment in in web three and we think that's

[00:19:15] right. 

[00:19:15] Jeff Roster: that's a pretty, that's a pretty high bar to get over though, to

[00:19:18] Maxence Cacheux: And I think the use case, the use case that we're saying where is a lot of interest, is really around loyalty, around the experience that you can provide, right?

[00:19:25] So how do I engage consumer di differently? How can I get first party data, first party consumer engagement? There's a lot of interesting things we're discovering every day. I'm, I'm discovering new ways of using the technology, so every day. So there's a lot of use cases that are being brainstormed right now, so it's a fantastic space to be in.

[00:19:44] So, 

[00:19:44] Jeff Roster: Sounds good. Where am I gonna bump into your technology?

[00:19:48] Maxence Cacheux: Cool.

[00:19:49] Jeff Roster: Which, any, any examples today that I can use?

[00:19:52] Maxence Cacheux: Yeah, you can use it for we did recently campaign an NFT marketing campaign for a major retail bank in Asia called [00:20:00] Access Bank. And what they wanted to do is to target younger audience, gen Z millennial, so they maintain thousands of NFTs.

[00:20:08] And these NFT gave you the ability to enter into contest. And win the tickets for World Cup. Right. So the more you reshare the token and talk about it on social media, you could increase your chance of winning the tickets, right?

[00:20:21] Jeff Roster: Thanks. Thanks for the warning on that one.

[00:20:23] Maxence Cacheux: And they were able to see clickthrough rates that were much better than the existing web two marketing campaign.

[00:20:30] And very interestingly, the quality of data that they got back to their CRM was very interesting because they were able now to engage directly with this consumers younger audience directly to try to convert them as customers. So that was a very interesting NFT marketing acquisition use case. The other use case that we're seeing is, are on the loyalty space, so brands that want to re reward consumer with experiences.

[00:20:54] So again, the, the token gated access is very exciting around that.

[00:20:57] Jeff Roster: Hmm. Okay.

[00:20:58] Maxence Cacheux: yeah.

[00:20:58] Ricardo Belmar: Interesting. Wow. [00:21:00] I guess definitely something we're gonna have to be watching out for Jeff.

[00:21:02] Jeff Roster: Yeah. Boy. Oh boy.

[00:21:03] Maxence Cacheux: And there's lot of use case. One that I didn't talk about as well is the digital passport certificate. We're seeing a lot of retailers looking at this either in the fashion or in white goods.

[00:21:13] So a token being a digital passport certificate of your product where you can have your warranty proof of purchase. You could have all the maintenance if a white goods, for example if it's a fashion nft, you could potentially wear it in the metaverse in the game where some people are spending a couple of hours per day.

[00:21:32] So there's also very interesting use cases there. So

[00:21:35] Ricardo Belmar: Hmm. I, I guess the, the. Last question I have for you on that though, I just triggers from, as you were describing that, is there a particular segment or segments within retail that you think are more inclined to be the early adopters here?

[00:21:48] You know, what you do, you expect to see it more in, fashion versus luxury goods versus home goods and, and so on. Are, are there leading segments that you expect to see this this year?

[00:21:58] Maxence Cacheux: Yes. So we're [00:22:00] seeing a lot of traction in luxury in fashion with retailers that are also produce their own product rights. So, not Pure retailers, but designers and retailers because this token can have multiple properties, right?

[00:22:12] It could tell the story about the brand. Who created this where did it come from? Was it responsibility stores or made, right? What is the, the story? It becomes like a proof of ownership, proof of authenticity. It could be a token that I transferred to someone.

[00:22:27] When I'm reselling it and to the brand is like super important because you can then engage with the secondary market customers.

[00:22:34] So for these type of retailers, fashion and luxury, it's a token that you can use from cradle to recycling for the full life cycle. You have very interesting use cases that are being explored by by those brands, 

[00:22:49] Ricardo Belmar: Hmm, interesting.

[00:22:53] Jeff Roster: My first nrf, I worried about point of sale devices, 

[00:22:58] Maxence Cacheux: Yes. 

[00:22:58] Ricardo Belmar: and here you are now waiting [00:23:00] for what, which retailer is gonna go dive into Web three

[00:23:03] Jeff Roster: point of sale devices and merchandising. And in 22 years we've come from that, which was cutting edge technology at the time to where we're talking about this and some of the other things we've talked about in the last two or three days. Really just an amazing acceleration of what we're talking about.

[00:23:19] Ricardo Belmar: Absolutely. Absolutely.

[00:23:21] Maxence Cacheux: Yeah.

[00:23:21] Ricardo Belmar: Well, max, thank you so much for joining us today. This has been a really illuminating discussion for me. I'm actually kind of excited to see where this is going. I think there's, you've described a lot of interesting use cases and scenarios that would let retailers do new levels of engagement.

[00:23:36] I think, so this is gonna be really fascinating to watch.

[00:23:39] Maxence Cacheux: Yeah. Thank you. Thanks Jeff. Thanks Ricardo. So very excited. So for what's coming up,

[00:23:44] Jeff Roster: Our pleasure

[00:23:44] Ricardo Belmar: Thank you. 

[00:23:45] Maxence Cacheux: Thank you.

[00:23:46] Show Recap

[00:23:46] Casey Golden: Welcome back everyone. So are you as excited as us to watch how retailers and brands will use Web three and blockchain to transform their [00:24:00] customer experience? It's truly more than meets the eye.

[00:24:03] Ricardo Belmar: Hey, wait a minute. I thought that was my line. I thought I'm the one who's supposed to make all the eighties pop culture references.

[00:24:08] Casey Golden: As soon as I said it, I knew. Oh, at least you're a good influence, Ricardo.

[00:24:14] Ricardo Belmar: Hundred percent. A hundred percent . So I have to say I came away learning a lot more about the challenges retailers are facing, implementing Web three and blockchain from listening to what max told us. But most importantly, now we've all got an easy button for this thanks to zblocks.

[00:24:30] Casey Golden: Absolutely. 

[00:24:32] Well, Ricardo, as amazing as this episode was, I can't wait to hear what you and Jeff come up with next. Who do we have to look forward in the next show?

[00:24:41] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, Jeff and I have yet another super interesting person to talk to coming up. Next time, we are diving into what I'll call a new take on micro fulfillment that you might not have expected. So believe me, it's the one that nobody wants to miss.

[00:24:56] Casey Golden: super, but now it's time to wrap this [00:25:00] episode. 

[00:25:00] Show Closing

[00:25:00] Casey Golden: If you enjoyed our show, please consider giving us a five star rating and review on Apple Podcasts. Remember to smash that subscribe button in your favorite podcast player so you don't miss a minute. Wanna know more about what we talked about today, take a look at our show notes and handy links for more deets.

[00:25:24] I'm your co-host, Casey Golden.

[00:25:27] Ricardo Belmar: And if you'd like to connect with us, follow us on Twitter, at, Casey c Golden and Ricardo underscore Belmar, or find us on LinkedIn. Be sure and follow the show on Twitter, at Retail Razor, on LinkedIn, and on our YouTube channel for the latest updates and content. I'm your host, Ricardo Belmar.

[00:25:43] Casey Golden: Thanks for joining us.

[00:25:44] ​

[00:25:47] Ricardo Belmar: And remember, there's never been a better time to be in retail if you cut through the clutter. Until next time. This is the retail Razor Show.​[00:26:00]