Gemstra

What is Gemstra

Gemstra’s mission is to make social selling accessible and awesome for everyone. Social selling, traditionally called “direct selling”, utilizes multi-level selling models that rewards people (called “Sellers” in the Gemstra ecosystem) for influencing sales through promoting brands to their social network. Social selling is a large and growing industry, yet it is extremely captive and mostly unavailable to the broader retail market.

Gemstra is building a blockchain-integrated ecosystem (ASTRA Platform) and token economy (GMS Token) to unlock social selling to the entire retail market. ASTRA is a smart contract platform. It leverages blockchain technology to put data back in the hands of sellers and enable retailers (called “Merchants” in the Gemstra ecosystem) and brands from the $24 trillion global retail economy to join social selling. Gemstra provides open source software and an SDK for Merchants to integrate with ASTRA. The GMS Token will reduce friction as ASTRA’s default exchange of value, power gamification and reward models native to social selling, and provide governance to democratize the ecosystem.

ASTRA Platform and the GMS Token are exactly what the stakeholders of social selling need - the de facto infrastructure and reward economy for an unpredictably large market.

Gemstra launched a proof-of-concept social selling marketplace called BOUTIQUES in July 2017 that gives sellers the ability to choose brands and products they want to sell and invites brands from the broader $24 trillion retail economy to participate by simply integrating their catalogs. BOUTIQUES quickly attracted 3000 sellers and 8 brands generating 7-figure annualized merchandise sales within 9 months of launch. The rapid growth of BOUTIQUES proved that retail brands want to participate in social selling and sellers desire freedom.

ASTRA - A smart contract platform

The success of BOUTIQUES inspired Gemstra to build a broader solution to liberate social selling to the broader retail economy (worth over $24 trillion globally). ASTRA is a blockchain-integrated platform that serves as technological infrastructure for social selling. ASTRA’s blockchain technology allows sellers to keep customer and network data they worked hard to generate, merchants to host transactions between multiple brands and myriad sellers, and brands to offer customized commission and rewards as well as a portable catalog that can be integrated with any variety of merchants. ASTRA promotes fair behavior and creates a trustless ecosystem for all actors in the social selling model. Gemstra will make the BOUTIQUES software open source and develop a SDK for merchants and brands to easily deploy a social selling business on ASTRA.

GMS Token - Exchange of value, rewards, gamification, and governance

By tokenizing ASTRA with the GMS Token, Gemstra reduces friction in the social selling transaction. GMS is an ERC20 token that serves as the most cost-effective method of exchanging and storing value. GMS is the default method of commission payment to Sellers. GMS can be used to purchase products at any Merchant. More importantly, GMS powers a gamification system that can be customized by brands and merchants for sellers. Gamification is the second most important form of incentive in social selling. Gamification can be based on achievement or engagement. Community and recognition are primary drivers of retention in social selling. Sellers form teams within a broader community that provides support, encouragement, and accountability. Recognition within a community drives Sellers to grow or minimally maintain their achievements. GMS provides an ideal reward construct that drives gamification through community and recognition. Distributions awarded by voting and special access granted by staking are GMS features that further incentivize Sellers to grow. Finally, GMS creates a system of governance within ASTRA so its actors have decentralized control over changes made in the ecosystem.

Value to the Actors

Sellers

Sellers drive sales for Merchants and Brands through direct promotion and social influence. Previously, Sellers were confined to a single merchant and risked losing their customers, teams, and incomes should they seek mobility. (eg. An Amway rep cannot take her customer and transaction data with her should she want to join another company.) For the first time, Sellers have the freedom to choose what they want to sell and who they want to sell with. Sellers can participate with any Merchant (or Brand) in the Gemstra ecosystem. All user and transaction data generated by Sellers belong to them in ASTRA. Sellers control who can or cannot access this data in the ecosystem.

Merchants

Merchants administer software, host the genealogy (network), define the compensation (architecture) plan, and provide the platform for Sellers to transact with their customers by selling products from Brands. Merchants can easily participate in ASTRA by using BOUTIQUES open source software or integrating ASTRA with their existing platforms through an SDK. Like in the broader retail economy, Merchants are curators of Brands. (eg. Sephora curates more than 300+ brands in their 1200+ stores) Brands can elect to operate as Merchants in ASTRA as well. (eg. Nike operates its own ecommerce site and stores. Nike also sells through other retailers like Footlocker or Champs.) The Merchant layer allows retailers from outside the industry to participate in social selling by activating dormant influencers / customers and inviting Brands they already do business with. While this layer can be disintermediated, Gemstra believes that the consumer economy will continue to value curation by Merchants.

Brands

Brands provide their catalog and define custom commission levels at Merchants they integrate with. Brands can integrate with multiple Merchants to access different genealogies (networks) of Sellers and Customers. Brands can be their own Merchant in ASTRA as well. Each Brand’s catalog is made portable on the blockchain. Sales volume information and other Brand data can be shared with Merchants and Sellers to show product performance.