Reinventing reward programs The average consumer is a member of 29 different loyalty reward programs, but 76% of us never use any of the shopping incentives these programs bring us. For the industry as a whole, worth an estimated $320 billion in 2017, that is a lot of wasted resources. There are a number of reasons why this is the case, mainly based on the illiquid nature of rewards. You can’t transfer points from one loyalty program to the other, or use coupons for brands other than those intended. That means that most rewards never get used, and may even acquire an aura of spam by consumers. GATCOIN is aiming to create a platform to solve these problems, whilst also providing merchants and brands with powerful tools to analyze and reach attractive new customers. The GATCOIN ecosystem rests on two legs, Merchant Tokens issued by participating merchants as tokens of their reward programs, and the new crypto currency GAT. GAT is the only valid currency on the GAT Marketplace where Merchant Tokens can be exchanged for goods and services. The GAT Wallet will hold all of your Merchant Tokens, which can be bought and sold on the GAT Exchange. Here you can also trade GAT for other major crypto currencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. GAT is ERC20 compliant, and registered on the Ethereum blockchain. Coin info Benefits to merchants and users Each merchant issue their own Merchant Token as their loyalty reward program. These are smart contracts that the merchant can decide the features of to make them replicate loyalty points, discount coupons, gift vouchers or prepaid cash cards. These tokens are issued in a closed network and are not crypto currencies. This allows the issuers to track the tokens circulation and receive granular data on the behavior of their customers. By allowing the Merchant Tokens to be traded on the GAT Exchange, they are being imbued with value. Never again will discounts or loyalty points be considered spam since they can be sold in exchange for GAT, and ultimately FIAT currency. Consumers being awarded with tokens will appreciate that they can sell them or trade them for other tokens they need. At the same time, the ability to use GAT to buy tokens offering a discount or upgrade from any merchant will help drive new customer onboarding. GATCOIN have also developed, and are currently seeking patent for, a special A-Drop technology which lets merchants drop special offers or discounts into wallets based on geolocation, demographics and spending habits. This allows the merchants to target interested customers that are much more likely to buy, and provide them with offers that are tailored to their tastes. The geolocation targeting will also help drive customer traffic to physical stores. The data collected from tracking the Merchant Tokens gives merchants valuable insight into the spending behavior of their target customers and allows them to run campaigns generating significantly more engagement. Users will get offers that are much more likely to be attractive, and they can sell any tokens they don’t need for GAT. Developing technology The system needs to be able to scale to handling millions of micro transactions. Currently no decentralized network is capable of matching the requirements, so the GAT Exchange will initially launch as a centralized database. It will later migrate to a decentralized solution to remove the trust requirement of storing your tokens with a third party. By launching immediately on a centralized database, GATCOIN can start the onboarding process of both merchants and users. They can populate the system with various Merchant Tokens, and build out the offering of goods and services in the GAT Marketplace. It will also allow GATCOIN to start earning money from 5 separate revenue sources. 1. Fees for the issuance of various types of Merchant Tokens 2. Fees for transactions on the GAT Exchange 3. Fees for in-app advertising 4. Fees for selling GAT in exchange for fiat currencies 5. Fees for providing GATCOIN Analytics All transactions in the ecosystem are done in GAT. Merchants can buy GAT for fiat currency on the GAT Exchange at a rate slightly above the current market price. As an anchor client, GATCOIN is working together with COTOCO, one of Japan’s leading social gift voucher distributors, to launch the first digital tokens during the second half of 2018.
