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Project proposal - Understanding the barriers to adoption of Dash by UK businesses and merchants

Article for The Jeweller attached (to be proof read and altered a bit ahead of publication next month) but gives a good idea of the article and the benefits of the sponsorship function - The Jeweller magazine is designed specifically for the National Association of Jewellers members - with a readership of 25,000

Interview lined up on Monday morning with Jewellery Focus following their publication of this article http://www.jewelleryfocus.co.uk/20348-samer-halimeh-trade-bitcoin.
 

Attachments

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Here is a Draft of the survey. It is still very much work in progress, your comments and suggestions welcomed at the end of the survey.
 
Here is a Draft of the survey. It is still very much work in progress, your comments and suggestions welcomed at the end of the survey.

I eventually gave up on the survey, it was a bit long.

For rating experience, a slider from 1 to 5 might of been better.

When you think about Cryptocurrencies which of the following come to mind?
Possible option: Political movement

Now you have read a little about DASH, how likely would be be to adopt it for your business?
I think that's a bit premature, not sure people can decide straight away.

What percentage of your annual turnover do the following sales channels represent?
There are SEVEN options and it has to total 100%... possibly a bit too much, it's why I gave up, just too fiddly / involved.
 
Why Trade Associations?

When we proposed "Understanding the barriers to adoption of Dash by UK businesses and merchants in the Gold and Jewellery Sector" we may have made the assumption that Dash supporters would appreciate the logic of this type of direct marketing. It's very different from the more conventional buckshot approach used for most kinds of media advertising. The benefits include:

- You get directly to your audience with an intermediary they already trust
- Your messages will not be viewed as spam as they are coming from a trusted source
- It's two-way information flow, especially if you can actually meet members at their events, seminars etc.
- If recipicents are not persuaded they are far more likely to respond so that you have chances to clarify
- Recipients can easily compare notes to reassure themselves
- Once a few members accept your proposals you have near-perfect references to reinforce further messages

Obviously this kind of in-depth interaction needs more effort and focus than just blasting out messages but success rates can be correspondingly higher. It also depends on getting the TA itself to accept your campaign. If the topic is interesting to their membership you are half way there. Appearing at their conferences and sponsoring awards is the icing on the cake.

We believe in this model and have used it before. Selecting a sector on which to focus for a Dash campaign was admittedly a somewhat subjective choice. A few gold and jewellery transactions will have much more impact on Dash acceptance than a large number of low-value ones. Hence our initial choice. If this works well other high-value sectors can follow, leveraging the same model.
 
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I think the idea is great. The U.K. needs more information 'out there' about Dash and the benefits it can bring to all of us. There is still so much ignorance of crypto and therefore fear that positive initiatives like this are important to begin to educate the masses. And where better to start in my opinion than in s high value market where large sums are transferred every day and high value clients buy/sell regularly. Retailers, exchanges and customers will benefit from knowing about Dash and it's instant, low cost, anonymous uses. I hope this moves forward and look forward to hearing what happens.
 
Many thanks to all those who have voted yes to this project, but we still need more yes votes to get safely over the line.
 
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@craigums thanks for the review of the proposal. We liked the emphasis generally on the need for targeted and measurable results. And noted the suggestion on reporting on results. We will be looking to replicate in other market sectors.
 
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We are on target with project milestones.



The Jeweller Magazine published the Dash article on 16 October


The survey was issued to National Association of Jeweller's membership on 18 October and responses are being submitted.


The NAJ will be conducting a social media campaign to further promote the DASH project to the sector.


The NAJ are issuing a press release next week, to give the project increased publicity.


We have contributed to an in depth article in Jewellery Focus on cryptocurrencies which will be published in November. This followed our issuing a press release on the project to them and has galvanised their interest in this area.


We have begun work on the integration project. This will initially consist of interviews with those survey respondents who indicate their willingness to discuss integration of Dash payments into their business processes.
 
Understanding the barriers to adoption of Dash by UK businesses and merchants

November 2017 update


The project is on track and progressing well.


Progress

Stage one


The Jeweller Magazine published our article on Dash on 16 October 2017 - see here for copy of article. We developed the survey with input from the Dash Community. The survey was issued to the National Association of Jeweller's membership on 18 October 2017.



Stage two


Raising the profile of Dash.
We secured good coverage of the survey’s launch in the Jewellery sector Trade Press.


https://www.retail-jeweller.com/new...rticle?blocktitle=Latest-News&contentID=18229


https://www.jewelleryfocus.co.uk/20800-naj-dash-digital-currency-survey


http://www.professionaljeweller.com/naj-partners-dash-digital-currency-survey/


https://jewelleryoutlook.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2134


In addition Dash is being featured in an in depth feature in Jewellery Focus monthly review that was published in November for subscribers only. This was a result of our work in this field.


Survey

The survey closed on 13th November and we have had responses from 201 companies. The survey took an average timing of about 17 minutes to complete. We received 41 complete returns and 160 partial responses - which provides us with a useful pool of information to draw from. Respondents came from across the sector, and from a wide range of turnovers, including some of the largest UK firms in the sector.


Next steps

We are beginning the analysis of data with a view to reporting back to the Dash community. Our report will include identification of key issues and barriers sighted by merchants and an outline of issues we need to progress.


Emerging themes include - education, security, costs, knowledge, and inevitably compliance concerns. We are pleased by the number of people who are open to the possibilities of using Dash in their business. We have been in touch with the Core team regarding the work that has already been done on KYC/AML compliance.


Integration studies


We have had multiple expressions of interest from companies seeking to be involved in the integration projects. We will take steps to progress these in December, but most likely these will be taken forward in January, due the the Christmas season being the busiest time of the year for this industry.


Financial position


The Dash price has moved favourably and in light of this the project will use any surplus to carry forward and subsidise the next steps.


Next steps

During December we will

  • analyse the survey

  • make contact with winners of Dash who took part in the survey and set up winners with wallets and transfer Dash ( 5 Dash for one winner and nine runners up with 2 Dash each).

  • Attend the awards dinner, representing Dash, which should generate further trade press coverage

  • Begin integration studies
In January we will;
  • continue to conduct the integration studies and report findings, with proposed next steps
 
Great to see this project on track and milestones being reported. Please keep it up. Wouldn't it be great if you get some Retailers to adopt dash in the New Year? I expect that this would give more opportunity for Industry related press articles... What do you think?
 
December 2017 Update

In line with our project proposal, during December we have carried out the following;

Analyse the survey
We have a draft report prepared on the survey results, which includes proposed next steps informed by the responses received. We will be including specific worked up proposals on key areas of work and will be having further discussions with the NAJ’s new Chief Executive who takes up appointment in January.

These include important areas of work around overcoming negative perceptions of cryptocurrencies and extending awareness of Dash pre- Evolution, to make the ground ready for mainstreaming adoption post the Evolution release.

Make contact with winners of Dash who took part in the survey and set up winners with wallets and transfer Dash ( 5 Dash for one winner and nine runners up with 2 Dash each)
Dash winners were randomly selected and contacted in December. We have set up 6 of the 10 wallets and their funds have been sent, and we will be working with the other prize winners to set up their wallets in the New Year. We are in the process of preparing a press release to be issued in January by the NAJ.

Attend the awards dinner, representing Dash
We attended the NAJ Awards evening on 7 December 2017. Dash was the headline sponsor for the NAJ Awards event - http://www.naj.co.uk/en/naj-awards-2017/. We included this article in their Awards event brochure.

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oLRHHE6HP0g3xLoIi4UOejdBkEAb8boM7rsGPFfrN_Y413l0IeOBEwd4wF8qceNQdwiUA-bgOjNFxfgAib68JFeqnAk9ACaN9dBnOKmWMDZxerr3fmYeLKjDMRo461c0b1S1bVCu


Since then we have been approached by others in the industry seeking Dash sponsorship for industry related initiatives - we will be considering this as a potential route for Dash for further exposure within this important sector. However the key to a sponsorship function is access to members and Dash must be mindful of this with future work. In our view it is not viable to simply offer sponsorship without other work included as part of a package.

Begin integration studies
We have had multiple expressions of interest from companies seeking to be involved in the integration projects. We have made contact with merchants who expressed an interest in participating in these feasibility studies and will be progressing these initially with 4 merchants during January.

The survey asked whether there was an appetite for a Technical forum/seminar, and there was not a great deal of interest so we are proceeding with feasibility integration studies as a better route.



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