The edge marketplace where tech partners make ‘shoppertainment’ a reality

Commercial context

The arrival of edge computing has caused a rethink in the way enterprise designs, markets and sells what it has to offer – as the edge era brings with it new capabilities to interweave the marketing and selling of goods and services with immersive experiences unique to the customer. CSPs have much to gain here – most notably by monetizing their investments in 5G and edge, by tapping fully into the 5G enterprise market (which will reach a value of $34.55bn by 2032) and the NaaS market (which will reach $155.17bn by 2030). The challenge for all parties in this blooming ecosystem is how to find the right partners and technologies to make mass market adoption possible – as the reality, for now, is that the infrastructure and cooperative agreements just aren’t there to support deployment at scale.

The solution

The POP! CSPs curating markets at the edge Catalyst is designed to overcome this hurdle by launching a marketplace where enterprise can easily view and purchase the full variety of experiential products made by CSPs’ technology partners. This system of exchange and product fulfilment has become known as the POP! Marketplace, through which services are fulfilled and monitored on-demand and with zero touch, following NaaS principles and guidelines. TM Forum APIs (TMF 641, 645, 635, 637) are used to automate order-fulfilment processes that orchestrate resource provisioning of partner applications in MEC. These seamlessly harmonize with industry-leading supply chain APIs from Amazon for the dispatch of inventories needed for physical fulfilment of marketplace offers.

The resulting marketplace allows CSPs to bring additional value to partners and customers by using their unique data insights to enable consumers to receive bespoke offers with specific eligibility that works in harmony with partners’ targeted audiences. By using such capabilities in concert with service metering and API click-throughs, the Catalyst has demonstrated monetization models which ensure multi-party revenue-sharing and settlement between CSP and partners. The Catalyst has also demonstrated self-healing network functions through use of the CAMARA QoD API and TM Forum API 621.

Application and wider value

The solution demonstrates how a retailer can stream an offer in real time using capabilities curated from the network and AWS’ Wavelength Zone. After a successful pilot, the Catalyst has broken new ground in demonstrating the relative simplicity with which retailers can work with a variety of tech partners to achieve bespoke shopping experiences. Although beginning with the streaming of a customer offer, the project has set in motion profound changes how society shops, explores and engages with brands.

The result will be live bi-directional communications, enabling smooth execution of new concepts increasingly known as ‘shoppertainment’. These might be immersive experiences which transform a conventionally functional interaction into something entertaining – or they can simply be something that suits the current mood or interests of the customer. This could mean for instance being able to engage with favourite brands in contextual, personalized ways at a range of locations beyond the storefront; learning about products through tutorials, then buying them directly via livestream; building trust and long-lasting relationships through transparency (from e.g. behind-the-scenes product creation content); and a new sense of belonging to online communities with similar interests.

For CSPs it is the dawn of ‘immersive events as a service’ – as explained by Neel Mehta, Director IT Architecture and Delivery at Bell, “the CSP is at the epicenter of enabling its retail and entertainment customers to fully realize the promise of immersive customer experiences. The CSP can now use its network foundation to enable the evolution of immersive digital experiences, creating new wealth, new markets and new channels by bringing parties together that did not work together earlier. Three revenue sharing models are created - affiliate commissions from sold merchandise, the solution charge from the CSP’s immersive services and new network data fees from the MEC and 5G slices curated to deliver the immersive experience.”

To learn more about the project or get in touch with the team behind it, please visit https://www.tmforum.org/catalysts/projects/C23.0.599

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