TopSnipes

Business type: Auction
TopSnipes is a website that conducts reverse auctions. The buyer initiates the auction, and the supplier places real-time bids to drive the price down. When pricing is the only thing being discussed between the buyer and the supplier, this competitive bidding on reverse auction platforms is appropriate.

Since the buyers, sellers, super admins, and admins are the primary users of our program, we anticipate working on their profiles as we construct this application from the start.

We developed modules for managing auctions, goods (referred to as items that are up for bid), users, payments, reports, commissions, and other things.

Client Requirements

In the initial requirements,

● the client requested to work on a straightforward auction website with two stakeholders

● a buyer who posts the auction

● a seller who bids on it.

For the payment component, the client sought third-party escrow services integrated with the system that enables automatic transactions between the buyer and seller with the supervising party.

Challenges

This is the most crucial stage of development. Creating a smooth development process, we aligned multiple meetings with our client to learn about the core problems and issues. Here is a list of the challenges we faced due to the drawbacks.
  • Challenges 01
    The main challenge in the first set of requirements was communicating with the client, who was speaking Italian.
  • Challenges 02
    The client needed more technical proficiency to give us the specifications demanded on the client's end.
  • Challenges 03
    We found it challenging to choose among the several third-party escrow services available at his location.
  • Challenges 04
    The commission management procedure has been a drawn-out one for us from the beginning.

Solutions

Our expert designers and developers worked together to develop quick-loading and responsive designs.
  • We struggled to connect with the customer at first, so we could not call and get their needs. More recently, however, we used Google Translator to interact.
  • Startupmate's Business Communication Team assumed responsibility for doing R&D on the technical requirements and delivering the R&D analysis to the customer as soon as it was convenient for him.
  • The Startupmate Business Communication Team was responsible for doing research and development on third-party services, interacting with the support staff of various businesses, and selecting the best option for escrow services.
  • The admin portal's commission management was challenging. The issue has prompted numerous inquiries about the operating procedures for the awarded projects currently underway. Nevertheless, the development team has been able to work on several validations and add many libraries to make the most of the management platform.

Process

  • Empathy

    At the outset of the TopSnipes design process is empathy. The designers focus on learning about and empathising with the app's prospective users. To do this, you must first understand your target audience and their needs by conducting research, conducting user interviews, and observing their behaviour. Initial objectives were:

    ● User's Onboarding

    ● Posting Products

    ● Bidding on Products

    ● Bid Award

    ● Payment Escrow

  • Define

    In the define phase, the team used the information gleaned during the empathy phase to produce a comprehensive statement of the issue. Ultimately, the team formulated a problem statement that articulates the nature of the difficulty they're encountering by bringing together all the information they've gathered.

    For the sellers, we developed,

    ● Seller's Dashboard

    ● Seller's Profile

    ● Notifications

    ● Logout

    For the buyers, we developed

    ● Buyer's Dashboard

    ● Buyer's Profile

    ● Notifications

    ● Logout

  • Ideate

    In the ideation phase, the team discussed and brainstormed possible solutions to the problem. At this point, the focus is on brainstorming and coming up with as many potential solutions as possible.

    The idea was to have individual characteristics for every feature of the dashboard.

    ● Super Admin Onboarding

    ● Super Admin Dashboard

    ● Super Admin User Management

    ● Super Admin Product Management

    ● Super Admin Payment Management

  • Prototype

    As a follow-up to the ideation phase, the team develops rough models or simulations of the potential solution in the prototype phase. Prototypes, which can be digital, physical, or a hybrid of the two, are used to investigate and validate hypotheses about the solution.

    To sum it all up, we needed closure for the process. So, we developed features like

    ● Super Admin Categories Management

    ● Super Admin Feedbacks Management

    ● Super Admin Notification Management

    ● Super Admin Reports

    ● Super Admin Global Setting

    ● Super Admin Logout

  • Test

    In the test stage, the prototypes generated in the previous stage are subjected to real-world testing and user feedback. In this phase, the team learns from its mistakes and iteratively improves the solution based on the input it receives. This cycle repeats itself until the team is satisfied that they have a product that appeals to their demographic and effectively addresses the issue.

Technologies Used

Initially, we began our designing over Figma, a collaborative web application for interface design, followed by using "HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, and Bootstrap", for the frontend conversion.

After that, we used the latest version of "PHP's Laravel" followed by the "Google Font APIs" and "Chart.JS" for JavaScript Graphics, along with some libraries for the development.