CoinFox: In the WP you write, that such project as Eligma was your greatest dream for about 10 years. What inspired you to start making this dream real at the middle of 2017?

Like you’ve said, I started thinking about the idea a while ago. What inspired me at the end was a talk over coffee with Matej Gregorcic, one of Eligma’s cofounders. He challenged me to stop thinking and start doing. I also felt that AI and blockchain technologies were finally ripe enough for a project like this, so I decided and went all in.

CoinFox: How are you going to invite different retailers to join your platform? What advantages or may be additional income they can have? Maybe you have already reached agreements with some shops?

We will begin our testing in one of the biggest shopping centres of its kind in Europe − BTC City in Slovenia with more than 450 stores. This is where we will implement transactions with cryptocurrencies in offline stores in mid-April. We already signed letters of intent with five major retailers there, which will allow us to start testing as planned.

The trend of online shopping is moving towards personalization. Eligma will use its machine learning and AI algorithms to really get to know the user. Retailers will want to use those features to their advantage and join the platform. There they will be able to reach a broad user community and improve their sales. They will also be able to take part in our ELI token-based unified loyalty program, which will drive even more users to their stores.

CoinFox: And the next question is nearly the same, but not about the sellers, but about the buyers: what are the best advantages of your platform as compared to ebay or something like this? Eligma is aggregator of aggregators – or not?

Yes, you can think of Eligma as a marketplace of all marketplaces. It will offer users a personalized and complete e-commerce platform with a unified shopping account, meaning no more entering credentials for each individual store. Our AI module will help them discover the best deals according to their requirements and by doing so remove the feeling that there is always a better deal that they couldn’t find. They will be able to track everything they bought in our blockchain-based inventory, meaning their data will be secure and unalterable. In time, our AI will inform them when the best time to sell those items is and help them list those items on second-hand stores. Last but not least, they will be able to take advantage of our unified loyalty program, meaning they will be able to earn and redeem our ELI tokens with any retailer they choose.

CoinFox: You are going to launch your project in Slovenia (in so called BTC City) and then in United Kingdom. How and when are you going to start? And do your think about other countries?

Yes, we are planning Eligma as a worldwide platform, but we need to start on a smaller scale to gather enough data and figure out the best practices to proceed further. We will start by testing our EliPay cryptocurrency transaction system in BTC City. We will slowly implement other Eligma’s features and test them in Slovenia until June 2019, when our expansion to the UK begins.

CoinFox: Is your platform unique in a sense, or there are some competitors?

It is definitely unique. There are some projects trying to develop some of Eligma’s individual features, but what sets us apart is our holistic approach of everything in one platform that will simplify and enhance the shopping experience.

CoinFox: Why did you decide to add second-hand market?

We tend to lose track of the things we have at home, so we felt it was necessary to give users the option to sell the things they don’t need. Our AI will predict the best time to sell used items and posting them on second-hand markets will be made very simple. That is how every household will become a business. Furthermore, the second-hand market is already growing rapidly and with our secure and decentralized sale options we are hoping to accelerate that growth further.

CoinFox: What payment methods will be acceptable on your platform?

Payments will be possible with fiat currencies (PayPal, credit cards etc.) and selected cryptocurrencies.

CoinFox: In the WP you write about “lack of a personalized approach” in existing shops. What are you going to do to solve this problem? What personal information is necessary for Eligma’s AI and how it’s going to be stored?

We are trying to rectify this issue by introducing a holistic approach. Users will have a unified shopping account, meaning we will be able to record all their habits in one place. This will help us to customize our AI-discovery module to find the most suitable items and offers. Our chatbot will ask users simple questions to refine their search, further personalizing their experience. By keeping an inventory, Eligma will know what the user owns, so it can suggest what to sell and what to keep. All this data will be user-centric, creating a tailor-made shopping experience.

We also recognized there are issues with keeping user data private. As a vast number of retailers are collecting personal data, it is spread all over the Internet, making tracking and deletion of such data almost impossible. With a unified account we can only send the absolutely necessary data to stores and keep the rest private. Users will be able to break all links connecting them with data with a single click, making them personally unidentifiable.

CoinFox: You’re also going to launch a decentralized sale on blockchain − as part of Eligma project. Tell some words about it.

Indeed, it will be one of our features that will be enabled by blockchain technologies and the use of smart contracts. Buyer and seller will determine the terms of their sale on the Eligma platform via social channels etc. The seller will deploy a smart contract with all the terms written in it on the blockchain by depositing ELI tokens. The buyer will deposit ELI tokens and his payment in cryptocurrencies to that smart contract. Only when he receives the product and checks that everything is in order, the smart contract will be resolved. Seller will then receive the payment and his ELI token deposit, and the buyer will receive his ELI token deposit. In this way, both are motivated to successfully fulfil the smart contract terms in order to receive their payment and/or deposit in ELI tokens. By using smart contracts, both buyer and seller are protected and there is no need for trusted third parties to intervene and charge a fee.

CoinFox: How are you going to monetize your business? What will be the platform’s sources of income?

Eligma’s initial revenue stream will be coming from an affiliate program. It will track sales with retailers that joined the platform. If Eligma redirects a user to a store and that user makes a purchase, Eligma will charge the store a commission. We will later sign contracts with member stores and receive commissions for every purchase, made through our platform.

When our community grows, we will enable advertising on the platform for an additional source of income. With adding more and more stores and products, our database will grow quickly and soon become interesting for other companies. They will be able to access the database via APIs, for which they will be charged monthly fees.

In time, we will also gain revenue by offering some items with an optimal quality/price ratio exclusively on the Eligma platform and under the Eligma brand.