Blockchain-based Ecommerce It's an Evolution NOT a Revolution-Experimental Evidence from Users' Perspective

TL;DR

This study evaluates the real-world impact of blockchain in e-commerce through user experiments and surveys, revealing challenges like fraud that may hinder widespread adoption and proposing mechanisms to mitigate such issues.

Contribution

The paper provides empirical evidence on blockchain's limitations in e-commerce and introduces a conceptual mechanism to reduce fraudulent behaviors on blockchain platforms.

Findings

33% of users engaged in fraudulent tricks

Fraudulent behaviors may impede blockchain adoption

Proposed trusted authority mechanism to reduce fraud

Abstract

Proponents of blockchains believe that this technology will revolutionize e-commerce. To evaluate this belief, we invite several groups of students to transact on a decentralized peer-to-peer marketplace built on the platform provided by Origin Protocol Inc., and then we conduct a survey about their experience of usage. Based on our survey results, we find that 33% of respondents play tricks on others, which implies that this undesirable result may hinder the widespread adoption of blockchain technologies. We also attempt to propose a conceptual mechanism to mitigate fraudulent behaviors. In the event of disputation, a trusted authority is entitled to the right to downgrade the fraudulent side's credit record, which is stored by a permissioned blockchain accessed only by the authority. Such a punishment can effectively decrease agents' incentives to sell counterfeits and leave fake ratings. In sum, we must distinguish what we proposed blockchains will do and what blockchains can do before enabling this technology in e-commerce.