Fraudulent Product Identification System Using Blockchain

Abstract

As global markets have shifted to online services, e-commerce has become the preferred form of exchanging goods. While online shopping has many advantages, we cannot inspect goods in person to ensure authenticity. It has given rise to a slew of issues, such as counterfeiting of products, scam products that are different from their listings and products that are never delivered. Over the last few years, this problem has become even more compounded due to the popularity of side hustles like drop shipping. It is common to find the same product sold under many different names and listings on different websites. It is a prime example of counterfeited products. Problems like these have a massive negative impact on the supply chain and the health of the merchant economy. These types of issues are too widespread to counter manually, so there is a need for automated systems that can reliably combat these types of scams. There have been attempts with various methods, such as RFID tags embedded in products, QR code stickers, AI systems etc. However, each method has disadvantages that make it undesirable to use. Blockchain technology offers the best solution due to the inherent properties of blockchains. A secure, distributed decentralized ledger is the perfect way to track the supply chain at every stage and put control in the hands of the consumer to verify the products before buying. The proposed system allows manufacturers, sellers (mediators), and consumers to interact with the blockchain independently with varying levels of access. The product can be tracked from the manufacturer to the consumer, meaning if the consumer verifies it, it is implausible that they would fall prey to a scam. The proposed system’s main advantage was the difficulty of tampering with entries in the blockchain. It ensures the security and reliability of the history stored in the chain. The main disadvantage of this system is that it is challenging to integrate into existing large-scale e-commerce operations. This paper outlines the need for such a system, an example of its implementation, and the advantages and disadvantages of blockchain technology for the specific use case.