BuyCo.io, the world’s first decentralised commerce (dCommerce) marketplace for the masses, today announces a new form of collective purchasing using permissioned distributed ledgers and smart contracts, that allows groups of people and independent businesses to collectively purchase directly from suppliers.
“Traditionally, buying cooperatives are time and labour intensive to set-up and run. BuyCo.io gets buyers set-up in a matter of seconds, and the entire process from order processing, supplier management, governance, escrow and payment processing are all fully automated through smart contracts built on Ethereum blockchain technology,” said Founder Jamie Burke.
BuyCo.io brings huge efficiencies to the world of ecommerce and procurement, lowering barriers to entry and offers a new form of digital commerce beyond traditional ecommerce. Powered by Uphold, the world’s fastest growing cloud-based financial service platform, BuyCo.io removes most of the costs associated with centralised e-commerce like Amazon and Alibaba, freeing up to as much as 15 percent margin on cross-border trading and transactions.
Built on Uphold Connect, Uphold’s open API, BuyCo.io allows individuals and businesses to hold value in any of 25 currencies, convert money instantly at the mid-market rate and send money in any denomination or amount to anyone in the world, instantly and for free.
“We are thrilled to be a part of another industry first, and having BuyCo.io’s dCommerce marketplace be powered by Uphold means instant payments to suppliers and improved liquidity for the benefit of all parties,” said Byrne Reese, Vice President of Product Success, Uphold. “BuyCo.io is an excellent example of how blockchain technologies are going to be reshaping the future of consumer-driven business, bringing to the masses more efficient, cost-effective purchasing power, almost eliminating legacy complexities, such as currency conversion and money transfer.”
Collective purchasing is when a group of people get together to procure goods or services from one or more vendors on an ad hoc or ongoing basis. The large bulk of collective purchasing happens through what are known as ‘buying cooperatives’ or ‘procurement coops’ which can be made up of consumers, retailers or wholesalers. They do so with the explicit aim of sourcing more competitively both on price, terms and service. Whilst levels of commitment vary it is generally with the ambition of repeat business on both sides.
The approach further builds upon the culture of the Sharing Economy but is better aligned to the principles of the traditional cooperative movement where BuyCo’s put the needs of their members first before a third party. It is possible to setup and run a BuyCo entirely for free with revenues planned to be generated from associated services such as trade financing and insurance.
Unlike Amazon, BuyCo.io doesn’t retail goods themselves. BuyCo.io is the creator and operator of code that connects suppliers quickly and efficiently to buyers with minimal friction and expense. This means they remove any potential for channel conflict entirely.
BuyCo Services Ltd. is now raising further funds to commercially exploit and scale the opportunity as well as grow the senior management team.
