INTRODUCTION
Over the years, fake counterfeit goods have been one of the trending global concerns. This ranges from household to industrial products, even to what we eat. Imagine buying a bag of rubber rice thinking its your favorite Thailand rice or buying a pair of shoes thinking its your favorite brand's product and later you discover the sole of the shoe is made from cheap polystyrene? All these might sound astonishing but it's reality; counterfeit commodities are now the order of the day. A friend of mine, Stanley bought a pair of sneakers last year December, thinking he bought ADIDAS AIRFORCE. After 4 days, the sole of the shoe pulled out and he had to check the name on the sneakers closely, behold it dawned on him that he bought the fake, ADIBAS. The SEAL network is one which is relatively new, put in place to counter the fakes. It is basically an ideology by a corporation that sees the need for a manufacturer of a product to get his money's worth at the end of the production process and during the sale, and also upholding satisfaction for end users of the products by ensuring they purchase quality products and not counterfeit. At Seal, it is believed that all inventors and designers of a specific brand deserve some accolades and some form of encouragement for the innumerable contributions they make on a daily basis to the society around them. These innovations are welcome as they have aided us to live or coexist in a conducive manner in our society.
It is therefore pertinent at this point to say that they have not received the full dividends of their numerous contributions and this is so because of lack of privacy of business and verifiability in the course of doing the trade. This has necessitated the inception of a trade design to check all these excesses and make business more profitable.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
From time immemorial the most pressing problem for a manufacturer is the existence of counterfeit in the market and this problem has caused significant loses in the cause of business, it’s so bad in some cases that less than 24 hours after production the counterfeit is already in the market. This destroys the knack to even produce things since almost anyone can still have access to the product.
Other issues bedeviling this field of trade is lack of any standard mode of ascertaining product authenticity, the use of barcodes is now extinct and as such isn't encouraged. The inability of a producer to keep tabs on his or her products in other parts of the world or country as well as the deprivation of gains made from selling second and goods. In the midst of all of this problems, Seal has come to make a change and ensure that trade continues to be profitable and satisfying for the manufacturer and user.
The stratification of this market between the Primary market and the secondary market has made tracking these counterfeit products hard since they have no standard mode of verifying these products. Some of the manufacturers of this products sell them at slightly lower prices so as to get more sales and entice the consumer to buy such fake products. This occurs even in the secondary market where consumer trust for products sold to a user is low, due to the high level of sensitivity to the corruption of market value at this level. Such evil trends extend to another stratum known as midnight shifting. In midnight shifting, the manufacturer uses the trade secrets it was entrusted with against its own client, by making more than specified and selling them in other markets to make gains outside or behind the clients back.
THE NEED FOR SEAL
The seal is in its most natural sense and essence a product of well-meaning individuals who intend to help both manufacturer and user to gain maximum utility from production, sale and purchase procedure in the market. Seal is the most reliable way one can employ to ascertain the authenticity of a product of a product or to know whether it is a fake. The project of Seal works with NFC chips, which are put into the products, then requires the use of the Seal app and the Seal Network which is designed to make available information as to the authenticity of a product and other services which have subscribed to the services of Seal.
Seal seeks to produce a token based market where physical products can be bought online through the use of Seal tokens. Seal makes it possible for services such as transferring ownership, theft prevention, insurance to work within their system.
Seal seeks to maximize profits for the producer and maximize utility for the consumer alike. With the introduction of Seal in our markets, brands earn money at every time their product is bought whether as second hand or as a new product, this is something that is completely strange in the business sector, this is done together with the protection of the brands from any form of counterfeits. The synchronization of blockchain mechanism into seals activities makes this process very easy as even centuries after your product is produced and is sold you will get some form of remuneration from the market, even when production of the product or commodity has seized. This is a giant leap towards the total decentralization of the market to achieve total autonomy and give the consumer a feeling of confidence in the products he seeks to purchase as well as the product authenticity. Seal seeks to build for the end user and consumer a better trading atmosphere where consumers are given a chance to enjoy authenticity at its peak and stop making profits for the counterfeit market who discredit at each point the works of industrious people who have contributed to the lives of all of us i.e. consumers or end users. This step is taken with due consideration given to the primary and secondary market alike.
It’s not as though there were no solutions made to remedy some of these problems already, the crust of the matter is that such remedy is not as airtight as this system about to be initiated by Seal.
Some previous solutions which were very inadequate over time may include QR-codes, holograms, and RFID which got compromised in the end. Hence the need for the Seal Network’s blockchain and NFC. The ease at which Seal’s authenticity verification mechanism can be operated is more convenient than the longer time taken by other security measures, where it is more fun is the fact that anyone can check for the authenticity. The Seal chips together with the Seal Network cannot be replicated or copied. This makes it impossible for people dealing in counterfeits to make money from the system. Seal focuses a lot of its efforts towards making the market non-profitable for counterfeit products, personal steps where made by the manufacturers to regulate the transfer of product, sale, theft prevention, etc.
PREVIEW OF SEAL APP
SEAL TOKEN DETAILS AND FUNDING
The primary source of funding for the Seal program would come from would come from the 25% service fee paid to Seal by whoever works with them and also from product payments. Which in itself is a necessary prerequisite for being a partner or user of Seal network? Other secondary means of gaining funds would come from chip sales, consultation and integration and even the provision of SaaS (software as a Service) products.
The Seal Token would be sold at the rate of 7000 tokens per ETH. Tokens would be distributed immediately but they cannot be transferred until the Initial Coin Offering(ICO) has ended.
THE TEAM
The team behind Seal Network is capable and experienced to achieve the project aim. The various team members and advisors with outstanding profiles can be seen on the image below.
CONCLUSION
Seal is a welcome development in the world of trade. The true aim and purpose of trade and innovation would be effectively achieved when seal implements all its plans. It’s only a matter of time. Despite all the problems that may arise from such an investment it is necessary to align oneself with this new model in internally regulating trade online and ensuring authenticity. It saves money for a manufacturer and also gives him insights on what to do or refrain from doing to make maximization of trade profits and customer utility.
Instead of spending unnecessary income on investigations to know where your products counter came from you just take one single step by partnering and identifying with Seal and they will take care of your products authenticity. This invariably saves government strength and energy required to either confiscate or investigate into an accusation of making counterfeit and makes the task of these regulatory agencies much easier and faster. This is the way forward for us to achieve a perfectly decentralized system of trade in our system through the instrumentality of blockchain and Seal tokens. It should be encouraged and given much more credence in our society.
USEFUL LINKS
Consider checking out the links below to know more about this great project.
Website : https://token.seal.network/
Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/SEALnetworks
Bitcointalk ANN: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2929809.0
LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/company/sealnetwork/
Telegram : https://t.me/sealnetwork
Twitter : https://twitter.com/seal_network
Writer's Bitcointalk Username : Deodivine1
Writer's Bitcointalk Profile: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1390292