cherry-auctions

Cherry Auctions

Overview

This is a project assignment for the course of Advanced Web App Development, or AWAD for short. There are a list of expected requirements, although no restrictions on technologies, but the selected technologies must be able to carry out the same functions.

Roles

Guest

  1. Menu System: The guest may view on the website a menu of categories of items. Categories must support at least two levels, such as Electronics -> Mobile Devices, and Electronics -> Laptops.
  2. Home Page: The guest may view a home page that can display “Top 5 Ending Soon Auctions”, “Top 5 Auctions (most number of bids)” and “Top 5 Highest Auctions”.
  3. Product Catalog: The guest may view a catalog of products, can filter with categories, and most importantly paginated.
  4. Search: The guest may make a search for categories or products. They may search using a fuzzy search with a full-text search. The results must be paginated and sorted (can be chosen, prices ascending/descending or ending time). Recently posted products should also have an eye-catching display.
  5. Product Display: Products displayed on catalogues should have at least the following attributes: thumbnails, names, current bid, current highest bidder, buy-it-now price (if available), posted date, remaining time, current bids count.
  6. Product Details: Hero photos, additional photos, product names, prices, current bid, buy-it-now price, seller infos and reviews, highest bidder infos and reviews, posted timestamp, ending timestamp, detailed description.
    1. If the ending time is in 3 days or fewer, then make it display relative to the user’s time.
    2. Questions and Answers between bidders and seller section.
    3. 5 similar products in the same category.
  7. Registration: Register an account using full names, address and emails.
    1. Verification with OTP is needed.
    2. reCaptcha
    3. Use a hashing algorithm to secure the password. DO NOT SAVE THE PASSWORD IN PLAIN TEXT.

Bidder

  1. Watch List: A user can save an item to their watch list, from the catalog or the product detail page.
  2. Bid: Can bid at the product detail page. The system disallows users with less than 80% rating to bid.
    1. Ratings are calculated based on “likes” and “dislikes”, e.g. 8 likes and 2 dislikes means 8/10 total, 80% rating. If the seller allows it, new accounts can also bid.
    2. The system sets a minimum bid to “step up”. Current bid + The step (% or absolute value) set by the seller.
    3. The system must have a confirmation dialog.
  3. History of Bids: Bids can be viewed as a card-based or tabular view. Names should be masked. Must also contain timestamp, name, and price.
  4. QnAs: The Product Detail view should have a QnA section between bidders and seller. When the seller or bidder gets a question or a response, an email must be sent.
  5. Profiles:
    1. The email, name, address, password can be changed.
    2. View my own rating, details of each rating + comments of those rating given by others.
    3. My favorites (or marked products in watch list)
    4. My current bids
    5. My won bids (along with a rating from the seller and a comment): For example, a successful transaction and the seller is happy. The bidder runs away and the seller is mad.
  6. Requesting Selling Privileges: After 7 days of usage, a bidder can ask for selling permissions (or upgrading the role). Administrators can use ratings to evaluate and choose to approve or reject.

Seller

  1. Post a Product: Must include all information: product name, at least 3 photos, starting bid, step, buy-it-now price (optional), and description.
    1. The product description must support a WYSIWYG text input.
    2. If there’s a new bid when it’s 5 minutes left, should it auto-extend the timer? The seller can choose whether to auto-extend.
    3. The administrators can choose when should it extend, and how much to extend by, and this setting applies to all products.
  2. Edit a Product: Can edit the description by making P.S. remarks. The new changes are appended to the description.
  3. Deny a Bidder: In the product detail view, the seller can deny any bidders. The denied bidders can no longer bid on the product. If the denied bidder is the current highest, the bid is transferred to the second highest.
  4. Answer a Question: Can answer bidders’ questions in QnA section.
  5. Profiles (More Advanced):
    1. Similar to Bidder’s Profiles.
    2. My current products.
    3. Products that are won. Can review the top bidder a (+1) or a (-1), along with a feedback comment. Can stop the transaction, which automatically (-1) the top bidder, with an automated comment “The Top Bid did not follow through”.

I’m not sure about 5.3’s last condition.

Administrators

For the following section, when “Manage” is referred, it means:

  1. Category Management: If there is a product in a category, that category can not be deleted.
  2. Product Management: Can remove any products off the platform.
  3. Users Management: Can see who is requesting the upgrade from bidder to seller. Can approve/reject the requests.
  4. Dashboard: Analytics, Charts, Summary about the users count, selling requests, financials, bids count, etc. You may suggest your own feature to track and analyze.

Shared Functions

  1. Login: Optional, but encouraged to also provide OAuth2 options such as Google, Facebook, X, GitHub.
  2. Forgot Password: Can change password through an OTP code sent by an email.

Systems

Mailing System

With each transaction, or an important action, the system must send an email to the relevant parties, such as:

Auto-Bidding System

Example for a product, starting bid at $10, step is $0.1.

Manual bidding:

  1. A bids $10. A is top bid.
  2. B bids $10.1. B is top bid.
  3. C bids $10.5. C is top bid.
  4. A bids $10.8. A is top bid.
  5. C bids $11. C is top bid.

Auto-bidding:

  1. A’s max bid is $11. A bids $10. A is top bid.
  2. B’s max bid is $10.8. B bids. A auto-overrides at $10.8. A is top bid.
  3. C’s max bid is $11.5. C bids $11.1. C is top bid.
  4. D’s max bid is $11.5. D bids. C auto-overrides at $11.5. C is top bid.
  5. D’s max bid changed to $11.7. D auto bids at $11.6. D is top bid.

As you can see, the bidders don’t have to interactive continuously to bid. The auto-bidding should be that the price is only barely enough to win.

“The system only implements one type. Do not implement both”

This sentence is quite unclear.

Payments

After an auction, the winner and the seller can see the “Complete Transaction” button from the product detail page, but other users can only see “Auction Ended”.

The process is as followed:

  1. The winner makes the transaction. Integrate with Stripe, PayPal, Cards or bank here.
  2. The winner sends along the address.
  3. The seller confirms the transaction has followed through, and sends the package. Confirm with the winner with a parcel send invoice, or similar items.
  4. The winner confirms the delivery.
  5. The transaction is marked as “Done” and reviews can now be given.

In this process, the seller may cancel, which automatically sets a (-1) for the winner. For cases: Seller requests payment in 24 hours, but did not receive, cancel.

The seller and the winner both have access to a chat to communicate during the process.

Afterwards, both can change or modify the reviews at any time.

Other Requirements

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