The Web3 eCommerce Stack for Premium Customer Experiences
Web3 offers incredible opportunities to build brand loyalty, increase revenue, and grow thriving communities.
As brands build their web3 infrastructure, they must decide what and how to incorporate their eCommerce stack for an experience that supports their brand.
They should consider the following:
1. Is it easy to use?
Web3 eCommerce should be so straightforward that someone unfamiliar with it can start immediately. But it should also be well-equipped to utilize all of web3 for those well-versed in the ecosystem.
2. Does it meet web3's needs?
Your eCommerce platform should accept various cryptocurrencies, integrate with decentralized applications, communicate with blockchain technology, and include the necessary components for a full-solution web3 experience.
The luxury experience doesn’t meet customers halfway—it exceeds expectations. A web3 stack should do the same.
3. Is it safe, secure, and reliable?
Web3 eCommerce stacks should comply with eCommerce business laws and expectations (like AML compliance to protect from fraud).
If you choose a platform like Mojito, you get a Merchant of Record that safeguards risks and threats from bad actors.
In this article, we’ll cover the transition to web3, how web3 eCommerce is changing the internet, and how you can get started.
Evolution of web2 to web3 eCommerce
The internet changes so fast that it’s hard to remember what it was like before.
Take web1, for instance.
It started mainly as an information hub through which you could visit a static site. Then, companies introduced online shopping carts, internet directories like Craigslist or Yahoo! Directory, and eventually, the search engines we know today. But everything was controlled by a few companies.
It wasn’t until web2 emerged that everyone could participate in their creations and engagement. In the publishing and writing stage of the internet, users could easily blog or share on social media. They used their online community and growing network to fuel their brand and sell.
All these benefits still lacked a crucial customer need.
Consumers didn’t like how they depended on platforms and often didn’t own what they purchased (like digital products, where they only had a license or a copy). They wanted digital ownership.
The new solution: Web 3.0
Web3 technologies solve many issues and create a decentralized marketplace with alternative payment methods, investment opportunities, security and privacy, and digital ownership.
For the first time, customers don’t need to depend on a few companies or platforms to dictate their commerce experience. They can buy, collect, sell, and build a community on their terms. Additionally, luxury brands could create the high-quality experience they wanted with no limitations.
Transitioning to web3 recognizes the “ownership” stage of eCommerce.
Brands must invest in a web3 eCommerce stack and join up with partners like Mojito to meet these needs, grow their customer base, and build customer loyalty that spreads like wildfire.
It’s a complex journey for brands on their own. They have to consider the infrastructure and all different types of customers on their web3 journey—whether they’re big users or not, everyone is on a path to web3 as the internet evolves.
A brand’s eCommerce solution must facilitate Web 2.0 needs for newcomers and those transitioning but also meet the expectations of a fully adopted web3 user (a “Web 2.5” solution).
How can brands leverage an eCommerce stack for all stages?
It starts with understanding the blockchain factor.
.png)
What is web3 eCommerce?
Web1 eCommerce: read stage
Web2 eCommerce: write and publish stage
Web3 eCommerce: ownership stage
Web3 eCommerce is online trade that uses cryptocurrency and the blockchain. It encompasses and facilitates web3 themes like ownership, decentralization, and community.
When someone purchases a product on your marketplace, let’s say an NFT (non-fungible token or unique ownership of a digital asset), your web3 eCommerce stack conducts the sale and records it on the blockchain.
The blockchain is a verified public ledger that shows digital ownership or onchain activity.
For example, if you decide to sell NFT artwork based on a product line you’ve launched, customers can purchase it through an auction on your marketplace.
The transaction is recorded when they buy the NFT, and they have proof of ownership. They can keep or sell it in the future on a secondary market (brands can receive royalties with resales).
Companies can give rewards and exclusive access to events (through “token gating,” a way to prove digital ownership for entry), which can create exciting communities. These loyal customers and members continue to spread the word about the brand, strengthen brand culture, and launch strong momentum for market reach and growth.
Brands can also hold digital events and connect with customers. Or, they can connect digital ownership and eCommerce purchases with real-life events, using the blockchain to verify eligible customers for exclusive access. The potential to build relationships with customers has never been greater.
There are two notable uses of web3 commerce to consider, which we briefly mentioned above:
- NFT & token-gated commerce: when a brand sells non-fungible tokens, usually tied to artwork, digital collectibles, or general proof of purchase when brands use tokens as a ticket to membership for exclusive events, loyalty points, rewards, and buying opportunities
- Redeemable commerce: when customers purchase a token they can redeem for something else, typically a physical product or event ticket
The web3 eCommerce industry has also been created to facilitate today’s web2 needs. Customers can buy tokens with credit cards and simple-setup wallets with a platform like Mojito.
Brands can also use web2 apps like Discord to build communities while connecting them to onchain activities. When someone purchases a token, they can use it to access these gated communities.
Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly web3 trends, news, and use cases in your inbox.
Newsletter Signup
How will web3 change eCommerce?
We are experiencing the web3 adoption curve. And as excitement continues to grow and more people join web3 platforms and experiences, it’s quickly getting fully integrated into society (brands like Starbucks, Nike, and more have already dived in).
It’s up to brands to ground themselves in the web3 ecosystem before they’re left behind.
1. Tokens: Digital ownership and rewards
Users can purchase a unique digital product and prove ownership. This is huge, especially in the digital art and collectible community.
Web3 owners can also invest in assets and resell them in the future. Digital items now have tangible value thanks to NFTs that help prove their ownership on the chain.
Owners can also receive rewards or “airdrops” from the brand they purchase the NFT from. Or, they can join exclusive events. These are significant advantages for brands that want to connect with their customers and build momentum through that community.
For example, when Mojito partnered with the Tampa Bay Rowdies, they created a NFT digital pass for season ticket holders. Most owners claimed their pass and used it for in-game discounts and perks.
This empowered the team's fan base, increased loyalty, provided trackable engagement, and positioned the brand as an innovative leader in the sports industry.
2. Loyalty: Engagement, communities, and memberships
Web2 had fragmented communities all over the internet, like social media groups and forums. Now, web3 offers more intimate, organized, and decentralized communities.
For example, communities have more qualified members. Through token-gating, members have buy-in by purchasing or winning an NFT. They can all meet in one place, even virtually through video events.
While their experience might involve different apps and locations, it’s all connected to the blockchain, creating an interconnected experience. And through ownership, community members can build their investment and reputation within their circles.
These are prime opportunities to host events, launch exclusive products and collectibles, and grow a brand’s following.
3. Monetization: Additional revenue streams
Lastly, web3 eCommerce solutions open two new revenue streams for your brand.
First, you can sell unique digital products identified through tokens (NFTs) on blockchain networks—a product class that never existed before. Then, when someone resells the NFTs you mint, you can earn a percentage of those sales back as royalties.
These new revenue streams have changed the game for the luxury industry (and it's only just begun).
Brands can leverage the most popular ways to sell onchain assets:
Digital-only collectibles
Companies can sell NFTs representing a digital good. They can sell an art collection, a digital pass, digital representations of a product line, and more.
Digital physical twins
Brands can also sell NFTs that link to physical products. A customer can own a digital good and a physical version. Customers could receive the digital product immediately and redeem the physical version.
Redeemable NFT products are great if a buyer purchases an expensive good and doesn't want to worry about the logistics immediately (like shipping or picking up the item). They can redeem the good with their NFT and get the physical item when ready.
Both of these types of NFT categories offer royalty opportunities for brands (on the first sale and with resales on secondary markets).
As customers jump into web3, brands can scale with them and offer the products and service experience they love. It's an exciting time to grow your brand and embark on a new digital frontier with expansive revenue opportunities.
Web3 eCommerce use case: Sotheby’s landmark innovation
When most of us hear about new technology to implement in our organization, we’re often intimidated—especially if the business has been around for a while. Simply put, change is hard.
But the beauty of web3 is that its community and innovations are for everyone—in one case, an almost three-hundred-year-old auction house:
Sotheby’s has the most respected reputation for its high-end art sales. With their experience and history, they knew they needed to continue evolving for the future. If the future of art is moving digital, they wanted to ensure they were leading the way.
Long story short: They needed to invest in a platform facilitating web3 payments and art ownership.
After seeing huge NFT art sales in the millions, they knew that the market wanted a web3 art experience.
But, like anyone else learning something new, Sotheby’s leadership team wasn’t sure where to start. They saw NFT sales and collections as a community-first experience—much like how they facilitated the art community in traditional settings.
Sotheby’s recognized they were dealing with a new generation of collectors and artists with different interests and needs.
One question lingered as they dove into the shift: “How can we serve these people?”
Sotheby's wanted to run their own sales and give buyers a reliable, classy way to purchase straight from them with their auctions under their own control. They envisioned an easy entry for newcomers while serving the early crypto-savvy crowd through a white-label experience powered by Mojito.
Mojito built a versatile, user-friendly marketplace for the luxury auction house. And it was a huge success with over 130 million dollars in NFT sales to date.
Customers could easily view art and bid for the work they loved. When they won, their transaction seamlessly went through, and they became proud owners of distinguished art.
Sotheby’s now stands as a bold innovator. Sotheby's garnered acclaim as a mover and shaker on the heels of its rapid and wholehearted plunge into the space—a journey closely linked with the bedrock Mojito helped lay.
Important considerations: AML compliance in web3 eCommerce
While web3 eCommerce offers exciting opportunities for brands and customers, we should also consider compliance issues.
Cryptocurrency is new and volatile, and while the technology is very secure, it still faces threats from bad actors—just like any commerce space.
These are problems that already existed in web1 and web2, but since web3 is new, it opens up vulnerabilities to users who are learning the ropes.
Brands should partner with a marketplace and platform that is AML compliant, meaning they responsibly fulfill requirements for anti-money laundering regulation. Brands should also implement robust identity verification processes and transaction monitoring to prevent fraudulent activities—all to protect customers and comply with regulations.
Not only is compliance important from a legal and ethical point of view, but it’s also critical for web3’s higher standard for privacy and security. Consumers want more transparency and responsibility from brands. And if brands can prove that they’re taking care of customers and leading the way, they can build and improve their trust in the market.
The blockchain helps protect against these frauds by establishing a clear activity record. But brands will only benefit when they partner with enterprise solutions like Mojito that can provide the tools and teams to monitor and detect suspicious activity.
Mojito makes it easy for brands by incorporating tools like Chainalysis and Onfido for insights, KYC/AML compliance, and more. Businesses don't have to worry about managing multiple vendors and services because Mojito brings it all together.
How Mojito facilitates web3 eCommerce experiences for brands
If brands don’t act now, their online experience will feel like a website twenty years ago—uneasy and hard to navigate. This evolution reflects the film and digital camera shakeup. The companies that didn't upgrade their technology would quickly fade away. Brands can adopt the web3 eCommerce stack to become tomorrow's solution (before it's too late).
Luxury brands have a tremendous opportunity to innovate and create an eCommerce stack for web3. These new stacks deal with a lot of complex moving parts. Brands need to consider the marketplace, blockchain, multiple currencies, security, community, and many other factors.
If brands want to nurture their reputation for high standards, they need a partner to pave the way and provide the all-in-one solution for web3.
Here’s the good news. Brands can create the best experience possible for their customers today.
By partnering with Mojito, they’ll have everything they need for a successful web3 presence. Brands can run their web3 eCommerce through our white-label marketplace and solutions. The marketplace is yours, not some third-party brand, and it’s presented with a seamless, elegant user experience.
We provide identity verification, payment processing, and smart contract execution, making it easier for brands to engage and monetize their web3 communities. Mojito is Soc-2 Type 1 compliant and safeguards enterprises for the safest, smoothest web3 customer experience.
Our platform offers rewards, auctions, drops, marketplaces, memberships, and easy onboarding with user-friendly checkout options.
See more available articles
Adopting the Avatar: the Core of Consumer Customization
A brief playbook for brands building for the digitally-native generation.
According to McKinsey, fashion companies are expected to double their investment in technology by 2023. This statistic was one of many released during 2021's digital assets boom, revealing an important truth: consumers — and especially Gen Z — care deeply about owning their digital identities. In the two years since "NFT Summer," we've learned a lot about the evolution of consumer habits in digitally-native spaces. These insights can help guide the future of how brands operate and consumers engage in virtual environments.
As a short follow-up to our last blog post on how web3 is driving a return to the internet's golden age of customization, we're sharing some additional thoughts on how you can build for the next wave of consumer adoption. This evolution is already showing signs of incredible value for forward-thinking brands like Gucci, Valentino, L'Oréal, Adidas, Nike, and many more.
Web3 Returns the Internet to the Golden Age of Customization
This is what it feels like when the future enables what so many users loved most about the past.
MySpace, StumbleUpon, GeoCities, LiveJournal, Tumblr — the early internet thrived on user-driven, customizable experiences that, while rudimentary in design, clunky in function, and altogether useless for major brands (i.e., not monetizable or targettable), offered humans some of the earliest opportunities for representing themselves online.
Two decades later, across multiple transformational eras of the internet (more on this below), what can we learn from these now archaic — and predominantly extinct — platforms? To start, let's set the stage of the golden age of the web and the subsequent erosion of online customization that followed.
These early platforms referenced above were among the first to offer users a customizable digital sandbox that lacked the restrictions — and intrusive, expensive, increasingly ineffective advertising practices — that is now commonplace across tech. These were platforms on which people created, not platforms on which products were sold.
FAANG companies undoubtedly standardized the internet user experience. These companies built easier ways for people to create and disseminate information while creating the ability for the world's biggest brands to reach these new, content-craving audiences through new experiences and digitally-native business models. However, FAANG-style companies have also contributed to the flattening of the once-loved, now-nostalgic digital aesthetic, eliminating (or narrowing) users' ability to find customization online.
Example: go to StumbleUpon right now, and you'll just get dragged between identical Pinterest boards.
Implementing Web3 CRM: Wallets Are the New Email Address
How to Implement Web3 CRM for Consumers
Your customer relationship management system is your business's beating heart. It’s how you nurture customers, track vital information, and make strategic decisions.
Now that web3 has entered the fold, traditional CRMs can be augmented. So the question is this: Is your brand prepared for it? And what does the future look like?
Brands can expand upon their CRM data with wallets and token interactions to build loyalty in the changing digital economy.
If your CRM is the heart, what happens if it can't support your entire customer base along with their actions and interests? Consumers are adopting web3, and you want to be there from the start.
And with increasingly more limitations on what consumer data brands can collect, store, and use, along with apps and systems that don't talk to each other, brands miss out on data everywhere.
You need web3 CRM capability to connect wallets and token usage to your web2 data to accurately paint a picture of your customers.
Enhancing your CRM with web3, you can track and reward engagement across virtually any physical or digital touchpoint and connect it all in one place to analyze and manage.
Onboarding customers to create web3 wallets is the first step to getting started. The good news is that, with Mojito, the process is seamless for new users. They can set it up and manage it with an email address. In many ways, wallets have become the new email address, offering more benefits for customers and providing brands with the holistic data and CRM capabilities they need.
Mojito's web3 CRM collects and pulls all these moving pieces from different parts of the web together to create one remarkably effortless customer experience.
In this article, we’ll compare the differences between a web2 and web3 CRM, the benefits of using a web3 CRM, and how Mojito might be the right fit.
What’s the difference between web2 and web3 CRM?
The CRMs most brands use do not facilitate the needs that web3 has—the biggest one being connecting offchain and onchain data and creating an integrated portrait of customers across all physical and online interactions.
Web2 CRMs provide essential data and communication tools to manage emails, SMS lists, social media followers, eCommerce buyers, event attendees, and more.
But it's difficult to connect every data source you'd like to trigger into your web2 CRM, let alone add new data sources in web3.
Brands can instead use a web3 solution to augment their CRM by connecting data sources in a different way that brings everything together. Companies can create the most connected, data-rich CRM they've ever had.
Brands require CRM solutions to capture the entire customer data picture across both the internet and real-life experiences. In turn, they create a community-driven customer base, increase sales, and use their CRM for better connections, communication, and data.
Wallets are the new email addresses
It's no secret that brands are losing data through their traditional channels. Big Tech companies are reigning in how much data you have access to, like Apple limiting cookies, and how brands now get an incomplete picture of their customers.
Additionally, as customers interact with web3, your brand is in the dark until you establish web3 CRM capability.
Web3 wallet addresses are unique identifiers for users on the blockchain. Their address is recorded when they purchase an asset or trigger activity on the chain. With Mojito, onchain and real-life interactions join together in one familiar experience.
As your customers interact with your brand and create or log in with their wallets, you can associate that with their customer profile.
When a customer logs in on your profile manager, they can add their web3 address, resulting in a holistic view of your customer.
This is a huge opportunity for first-party data. Your brand can get direct analytics from your activities through a verified, authentic process supported by onchain and offchain interactions.
Wallet addresses offer a more reliable and extensive way to gather data on customer behavior, help drive engagement, and make better growth decisions.
Cookies are the new NFTs
While traditional solutions suffer from increasingly limited access to cookies, web3 offers brands a bright and better future.
NFTs are non-fungible tokens. A non-fungible token is a digital asset recorded on a public decentralized ledger called a blockchain. It can be verifiably owned and impossible to forge.
NFTs make it possible for someone to digitally own an asset, which has changed the future of technology. But it also provides a unique opportunity for web3 CRMs, engagement, and data.
"NFTs: your ticket into a brand's action." — Michael Litman
Dynamic NFTs utilize live metadata to gather customer information and drive engagement.
Before solutions like Mojito's Dynamic NFT, non-fungible tokens didn't change. And why should they? People wanted a unique digital asset that would last forever and retain or grow in long-term value.
But as web3 matured, so did the perspective on NFTs.
What if the value of an NFT was change?
For example, artists began to experiment as they created NFTs. They would explain that the NFT would change and evolve. This in itself made it valuable and rose in popularity.
Brands would learn how to use it for data and supercharge engagement only a short time later. Traditionally, metadata remained static, but now Dynamic NFTs update metadata based on consumer behavior.
Brands can leverage metadata in many use cases:
Loyalty programs: Customers can join membership communities when they purchase a digital pass with Mojito's traditional, familiar checkout experience. Every time they interact with your brand across any first-party or third-party platform, like redeeming rewards or visiting an event, their token metadata is updated and fed back into your CRM.
Exclusive access: Brands can implement token gating, limiting access to your brand's NFT or memberships. Gate websites, apps, events, games, and more. When customers check in, their activity becomes trackable.
Enhanced membership and subscriptions: Dynamic NFTs allow brands to sell time-access passes with expiration dates. While owners can always retain the NFT, their subscription must be maintained for full access to benefits. Brands use the metadata to identify subscription holders and analyze their activity (while adding a new revenue stream).
Customer interactions: Brands use NFC-enabled spaces to connect customers with their Dynamic NFTs and events, physical checkout experiences, and more, intertwining digital and physical customer engagement. When someone redeems a reward by scanning a code or object, your brand can track that activity.
Web3 solutions like Mojito use webhooks to send data from third parties back into your CRM. Every time a user takes an action, Mojito sends that data to your CRM and vital tools. Your data is collected, verified, and authenticated in one place, on or offchain.
Mojito offers a cohesive relationship management infrastructure. You can leverage a complete picture of your customers through thousands of interactions involving physical triggers, third-party apps, web2 tools, and web3 activity. Customer actions across the web or in real life can be configured to work with your CRM.
You’ll be able to understand your customers better than ever and reward them for their engagement at a level that was impossible before.
Benefits of using a web3 CRM
You don’t have to worry about a bumpy or complex ride when you adopt a true web3 CRM.
You’ll have all the tools, resources, and tech stack integrations needed to make an enterprise solution for your customers that meets the standards of your brand.
Below are several benefits you can expect when you connect your web2 CRM to a web3 solution.
1. Bring web2 and web3 data together
Mojito facilitates web2.5, meaning instead of "switching" web experiences, brands and customers can use web2 and web3 with no learning curve or friction at all. All is encompassed in one familiar internet experience.
Users can pay with a credit card or crypto and interact with the online apps they've used all these years (as well as easily using web3 apps).
Mojito enables brands to collect and pull necessary data to understand their customers through all web iterations and experiences—all in one CRM solution.
They can use the full power of this web2 and web3 data for events, NFT collections, token gating (exclusive access based on ownership), and other digital ownership experiences.
2. Actionable data for better customer relationships
Every brand wants to improve its customer relationships. Still, as the internet becomes more fragmented, especially with the introduction of web3, improving service and keeping up with expectations will be much more difficult.
Web2 CRMs are not capable of putting all these actions and platforms together.
However, web3 CRM platforms improve customer relationships by incorporating off and onchain activities through a centralized database.
If brands adopt an enterprise web3 CRM, they can meet changing consumer needs and stand out in the market with better and improved relationships thanks to the tools and possibilities web3 offers.
3. Improved sales and marketing strategies
Now, more than ever, your sales, marketing, and customer service teams will have access to the most accurate and transparent data within multiple channels and communities, all in one place. Your CRM can include customer history, preferences, community management details, and more data points within web3.
You can use accurate and more abundant data to analyze customer behavior for improved decision-making. A suitable CRM can also help sales and marketing teams provide personalized messages based on their data, increasing conversions and other KPIs.
4. Next-level customer service
Not only does better, more current information help improve customer relationships but so does the level of service you can provide.
Your team can proactively resolve issues with real-time data collection (for example, tracking customer engagement and pinpointing areas of opportunity), which increases customer satisfaction.
Brands can go beyond positive experiences and create the best problem-solving processes and community-building opportunities for your customers.
5. Greater ROI potential
Web3 CRMs connect your stack, improving overall sales, marketing, and customer service and building long-term loyalty.
These critical benefits offer bigger ROI potential and future growth. By analyzing blockchain activity, brands can track the popularity of certain products, use blockchain-verified data to track inventory and invest in the areas customers are most interested in.
Web3 CRMs also open new revenue streams, like selling digital assets with NFTs. Brands can even test the reception of new physical products by selling limited sample releases with “NFT digital twins” (when a physical good comes with an NFT representation at purchase).
6. Strategic positioning
You can better position your company for the economic shift to the decentralized web with a web3 CRM.
For example, Mojito's web3 CRM also includes "web2.5" features for the transition.
Some customers won’t know how to navigate web3—they’ll want simplicity. Others will want every tool available to them. Web2.5 serves everyone. New users can pay with a credit card and have a user-friendly experience. At the same time, web3 adopters can take full advantage of innovation and opportunities with cryptocurrency payments and more.
Brands will serve web2 and web3 users for the internet's evolution, and they'll have a robust CRM foundation for the new economy.
