**6. Relevance of Web3 in eCommerce**

Any new advancement in technology creates two paths for existing businesses, a sustaining path, and a disruptive path [12]. The sustaining path include adoption of the new technology but maintaining the core business model while the disruptive path leads to an entirely new business model – either a new solution being provided to the user or disruption in the manner products or services are being delivered. The adoption of Web3 can also be analyzed using a similar framework. Value creating economies, removal of the need for central authority, and improved security and trust opens multiple opportunities and challenges to the existing business models. Like the Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 transition where most of the heavily used platforms and services suddenly lost significance, it is likely to see a similar transition with current eCommerce platforms.

Technology-enabled live shopping improves customer satisfaction and engagement in virtual and augmented reality as compared to regular online environment [13], which is a good case of how eCommerce business adopts a new technology to provide better experience. For example, a retail fashion store does not stop selling clothes, but the way consumers can try out the products without being at a physical store is an entirely new way of selling. NFT marketplaces, such as opensea (opensea. io) or foundation (foundation.app) has created an entirely new artist-centric business model dismantling the regular agency-centered art business models [9] – including art galleries who generally takes a large part of the proceeds. This is an example of disruptive change. NFT itself created a market size of over \$20 billion in 2022 and is expected to reach over \$211 billion by 2030 with a growth rate of 33.9% year or year [14].

Even though not a Web3 example, let us take the example of YouTube and Patreon. In YouTube, content creator must wait for the audience to watch the content and monetization is a function of elements such as watch time, physical location of viewers, ads being run etc. The monetary aspects are not known while something is being created. However, Patreon as a platform guarantees a revenue based on already subscribed users who are willing pay for the content from a particular creator. What eCommerce focused businesses need to understand is that the consumer base and the solution they find accessible are evolving. With Web3, solution providers gain advantage in multiple forms – such as avoidance of transaction fees, cost of implementing trust, lesser requirement of intermediaries to solve problems, accessibility to a global market, and lower risk of fraud.

Major retailers have applied the concepts of the virtual and augmented reality currently in their online businesses. However, most of these advancements in user experience does not currently use Web3 features. The retailers can easily implement options such as all virtual buying experiences including smart contracts and crypto payments etc. Similarly, Web3 has opened avenues for marketplaces (such as the ones for NFTs) for buyers and sellers to interact directly. Even though these marketplaces are centrally controlled (marketplace itself being owned by a single commercial entity), they avoid multiple other intermediaries and charge only limited transaction fees as compared to the legacy markets for these industries, like the art galleries. Similar opportunities exist for multiple industries ranging from agriculture, healthcare, oil & gas, travel & transportation and so on for the stakeholders to interact directly.

Another use case to apply new business would be to provide differential experiences. Ranging from concerts and sports events to application of Metaverse in complex healthcare procedures are some of the areas where these concepts have relevance. Overall, business which rely on their online presence must focus on either sustainable change as well as the new technologies opens up a wide variety on opportunities to eCommerce businesses.
