INS Marketplace: Decentralized Ecosystem connecting Manufacturers and Consumers

5 min readOct 21, 2017

Have you ever thought of manufacturing a quality grocery item and make it a success by providing the potential customer a quality product at the best price possible? If yes, then you must have realized the existence of the conundrum called the ‘Retailers’.

The major retailers capture up to 70–85 percent of grocery business in most of the countries. So the success of your product depends on the acceptance of your product by the top retailers. This lead to the manufacturer being dictated by the top retailers on what to produce, how it must be packaged, priced and promoted. They also charge a hefty margin which increases the cost of the product. The biggest loser of the inefficiency of the current system are the end users of the system i.e. the manufacturers and the end consumers.

INS tries to address the above issue by creating a platform that brings direct interaction between manufacturer and end consumer thereby rewarding both.

The grocery market, one of the largest consumer markets in the world, is forecast to reach $8.5 trillion by 2020. It is reaching a digital tipping point, with much of its growth to come from online. Online grocery, being the target segment for INS, is expected to grow from $98 billion in 2015 to $290 billion in 2020.

Problems:

Grocery market in dominated by retailers. Retailers capture a very high share of revenue and a huge influence over manufacturers.

Ineffective and outdated trade promotion practice.Even if it is the second biggest expense, after COGS for the manufacturers, amounting almost 17% of the price of the item, it has far less impact on the success of the product due the the inefficient system.

Solution:

An decentralized ecosystem by INS that helps consumers save 30% on daily shopping by directly buying from grocery manufacturers.

INS provides:

Direct interaction between consumers and manufacturers thereby bypassing Wholesalers and Retailers
Enable manufacturers to market their goods directly to consumers. INS help create bespoke marketing campaigns to target consumers and pass rewards to them directly.

INS Ecosystem:

The INS ecosystem will consist of 5 major participants:

Platform: The INS Platform is a decentralized marketplace that allows manufacturers to join, publish their products for sale, carry out promotion and loyalty campaigns, and get feedback from consumers. It enables consumers to order those products and facilitates the order fulfillment process.
Manufacturers: There are companies or individuals in the business of fresh produce, groceries and consumable household items.
Consumers: These are individuals or companies that want to buy online high-quality groceries at cheaper prices. Orders can be placed via the INS website, INS app or custom apps derived by manufacturers.
Fulfillment centers: These are existing warehousing facilities and delivery fleet. They provide the space where workers take products delivered by manufacturers and assemble orders.
Couriers: These are employed by a courier company or acting as independent contractors, will follow instructions received via the INS fulfillment app to pick up orders from fulfillment centers and deliver orders to consumers.

Advantages of INS Platform:

For Manufacturers:

Publish products to make them easily available for ordering
Provide fair prices on their products and compete openly with other manufacturers
Customize the INS official app according to their own branding, promote it to consumers to increase repeated usage and earn cross-marketing rewards
Serve in a trustful manner to keep a high rating score and attract more consumers
Provide attractive promotion and loyalty rewards to acquire and retain consumers
Get direct customer feedback

For Consumers:

Order everyday grocery and consumable products cheaper than at retail stores
Get orders delivered to the doorstep without need to spend time on offline shopping
Leave feedback to influence manufacturers
Get different types of rewards

Usage of INS tokens:

Manufacturers

Rewards: loyalty, promotion, cross-marketing, feedback
Minimum balance hold

Consumers

Payment for orders

INS

Referral rewards to consumers

Roadmap:

Team:

Team has 4 years of Grocery industry experience and have built strong relationship with manufacturers over the year
The team signed MOU with some of the biggest manufacturers like Unilever, Reckitt Benckiser, Valio, MARS

Dmitry Zhulin: Founder Linkedin Profile

Venture capital and private equity professional with focus on retail and ecommerce. 5 years of investing experience in crypto-assets. Previously with VTB Capital Private Equity, Rothschild and PwC. University of London, PgD in Finance.

Peter Fedchenkov: Founder Linkedin Profile

Brings wealth of retail and tech experience. Previously with Goldman Sachs and IBM. Teaches a class on retail at the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga. MBA from Harvard Business School

Dmitry Khovratovich: Blockchain & Smart ontract Developer Linkedin Profile

Recognized expert in cryptography and security (12 years, 2,000+ citations). Designer of Argon2 (the winner of the Password Hashing Competition) and Equihash

Fedor Lisitsyn: Manufacturer Relationship Linkedin Profile

Experienced strategy professional with significant experience in FMCG sector. Previously with McKinsey & Company with focus on operational projects. MBA candidate at Harvard Business School

Maria Lapuk: PR Linkedin ProfileOver

10 years of experience in digital PR. One of the most recognized PR leaders in the region. Maria’s awards include “PR Profile of the Year 2015", “Most Influential Networker 2013", “PR Professional of the Year 2012”.