The retail giant, Walmart, is moving fast with blockchain technology. The company just filed its new patent on a new implementation of blockchain into its retail business.
Walmart is being revolutionary today in terms of offering the newest digital solutions to its customers. In those regards, the retail giant just published its new patent from the US Patent and Trademark Office, which describes a unique blockchain ledger that will be able to track all purchases (items purchased) by Walmart’s customers.
What is interesting besides the tracking feature of the blockchain record is that customers will have the opportunity to resell the item purchased and tracked through the sales platform managed by the whole enterprise system. It will be the customer who sets the resale price, as long as there is supply and demand.
The innovative process can happen through several methods, including:Â Â “point-of-sale interface, a browser-based interface, a mobile device app-based interface, and so forth”, as the patent outlines.
This is how Walmart explains the background for the new invention and the new blockchain patent they acquired:
“Not all customers are necessarily interested in possessing a purchased item for the entire useful life of that item. For example, a customer may purchase a particular item that is required for a particular activity or chore and the customer does not expect to have subsequent need of the item following completion of the corresponding activity. In other cases, a customer who purchases an item can later develop a wish to resell the item for any of a variety of reasons.”Â
By implementing the blockchain ledger that allows customers to resell their purchased items is giving consumers more freedom and flexibility to manage their purchases from the store.
In addition, the company provided more information on how the agreement between the buyer and seller will take place, especially through the digital world of the enterprise system:
“By one approach, the transfer from the seller to the courier may require signatures from both the sender and the courier using their respective private keys. The new transaction may be broadcasted and verified by the sender, the courier, the buyer, and/or other nodes on the system before being added to the distributed delivery record blockchain. When the package is transferred from the courier to the buyer, the courier may use the courier’s private key to authorize the transfer of the digital asset representing the physical asset from the courier to the buyer and update the delivery record with the new transaction.”Â
Walmart is one of many companies to actively explore the benefits of blockchain and its applications. So far, the retail giant has filed several blockchain-related applications, showing the enthusiasm of the company for new technology and better serving their customers.