E-Commerce Project with Auction Functionality

Looking at developing an e-commerce solution that supports bidding. The seller will be posting items and the buyer will be bidding for the same. However, to bid for an item, the buyer has to register himself by paying a refundable deposit amount. This deposit amount would be refunded if the buyer does not win the auction. Hence, we will need payment gateway integration. The buyer will be able to bid for only the item that he registers for. If he wants to bid for some other item, he has to pay the deposit amount for that item too and only then will he be able to bid for that item. The bids can be placed over phone or via laptops/desktops and mobile devices having internet connectivity.

It is more on the lines of [login to view URL] but it is limited to only one item. What that item is would be revealed at a later stage.

Please let me know if you can build an end-to-end solution for the above requirement. If you already have done something on these lines, I request you to send me links to some of the sites that you have designed.

Two types of auctions should be supported by the system, Forward auction and Reverse auction.

A reverse auction is a type of auction in which the roles of buyer and seller are reversed. In an ordinary auction (also known as a forward auction), buyers compete to obtain a good or service by offering increasingly higher prices. In a reverse auction, the sellers compete to obtain business from the buyer and prices will typically decrease as the sellers undercut each other.

This is for the benefit of some freelancers who wanted more details about my requirement. Basically I want an e-commerce application with bidding functionality to be developed. Below are some of the features that will have to be incorporated:

1. Create Account Functionality and Login Functionality

2. Posting Ad's

3. Sale happens through an online auction. To participate in the auction, users need to Register to Bid for the Item. They can only bid on items they register to bid for.

The auction will be of two types:
a. Forward auction
b. Reverse auction

In a Forward auction, the seller posts an advertisement for the item and the buyers bid on this item. The person with the highest bid at the time of close of the auction is declared the winner of the auction. Hence, the seller can expect the best price for his item. In case of Forward auction, there should be a provision for each of the bids to be charged. However, while launching the site, this functionality is may/may not be activated but its activation should be a simple process. This auction is seller oriented.

In the Reverse auction, the buyer posts a description of the type of item he wants along with his maximum budget. The sellers try to post bids lower than the current bid while trying to sell their item to the buyer. The seller with the lowest bid at the time of auction close is the winner of the auction. Hence, the buyer is guaranteed the best price. This auction is buyer oriented.

I want both types of auctions incorporated in my e-commerce application.

The seller and buyer should be able to provide a description, upload photos, videos (The review of the item if the review is available) if any, the base price, Buy it Now price etc. They should also be able to upload and download an owners manual, user guide etc. too if available. The bidders should also be able to post their queries to which the seller should be able to reply.

The buyers and sellers deposit some money to post an ad. For this, we need payment gateway integration. I prefer Citrus or PayU for this application.

Auction Process:
There are three ways a buyer can place a bid:
a. With the help of an Internet connection, either through mobile/tablet and PC.
b. Calling the customer care, confirming his identity and then placing the bid.
c. The buyer and seller can also have an automated bid placing feature where the buyer can list his maximum bid amount and the system will automatically bid on the users behalf.

Every time a bid is placed, a notification of the bid amount and the time for the auction to end is sent as a message and by e-mail to all the people involved in the auction process for this particular item. This should be automated.

Couple of very Important things:
1. Scalability: My target audience is the entire Indian population which is about 1.2 billion people. However, what we need to understand is that everyone does not use technology to buy/sell and that the application will not become popular overnight. What I am looking at is a provision for scaling it up easily.
2. The Database should never ever go down and the data cannot be lost at any cost. There has to be a back-up from where the data can be restored.
3. The UI should be intuitive, well designed and pleasing to the eye.

Reference Site: www.ebay.com

AJAX eCommerce Java MySQL PHP

Project ID: #7434944

About the project