NITR Mart - Campus Marketplace

Welcome to NITR Mart, a dedicated online marketplace designed for the NIT Rourkela community. This platform connects students, faculty, and staff to buy and sell items within the campus, fostering a vibrant, sustainable, and convenient trading ecosystem. Built with modern web technologies, NITR Mart ensures a secure, user-friendly experience for listing products, managing profiles, and facilitating transactions.

Project Idea

NITR Mart addresses the need for a centralized, campus-specific platform where NIT Rourkela members can trade items like electronics, books, hostel essentials, and more. Inspired by the challenges of finding reliable second-hand goods within a trusted community, the platform aims to:

• Simplify Trading: Provide an intuitive interface for listing and discovering products.
• Ensure Trust: Restrict access to verified @nitrkl.ac.in email users, ensuring a safe community.
• Promote Sustainability: Encourage reuse of items like study materials and furniture, reducing waste.
• Enhance Connectivity: Facilitate direct communication between buyers and sellers via WhatsApp.

The project combines a robust Django REST Framework backend with a responsive Next.js frontend, leveraging technologies like JWT authentication, Cloudinary for media storage, and OTP-based registration to deliver a seamless experience.

Features

User Management

• OTP-Based Registration: Users register with their @nitrkl.ac.in email, verified via a 6-digit OTP sent to their inbox, ensuring only NIT Rourkela members can join.
• Role-Based Profiles: Supports distinct profiles for students (with year, branch, roll number) and faculty (with department), tailoring the experience to user types.
• Profile Management: Users can view and update their details, including name, password, and role-specific fields, with secure password changes requiring current password verification.
• Admin Access: Staff and superusers can list all users for administrative oversight.

Product Marketplace

• Product Listings: Users can create listings for items across categories like Electronics, Books & Study Materials, Hostel Essentials, Furniture, Sports & Fitness, Cycle & Transport, Room Decor, Lab Equipment, and Others.
• Rich Product Details: Listings include title, description, price (with negotiable option), category, and optional images hosted on Cloudinary.
• Unsold Products Display: The platform prominently displays unsold items, ordered by posting date (newest first), for easy browsing.
• Product Updates: Sellers can edit their listings (e.g., price, sale status) or mark items as sold, with access restricted to the seller or admins.
• Image Support: Users can upload product images, stored securely on Cloudinary for fast, reliable access.

Buyer-Seller Interaction

• Contact Seller via WhatsApp: Buyers can contact sellers directly through a "Contact Seller" feature on the frontend, which redirects to the seller’s WhatsApp chat using their registered phone number. This enables quick, personal communication to negotiate prices or arrange meetups.
• Seller Information: Product listings display the seller’s email (e.g., student@nitrkl.ac.in), providing transparency while maintaining privacy.

Security and Access Control

• JWT Authentication: Secure API access with JSON Web Tokens, including access and refresh tokens for session management.
• Permission Controls:
  • Product listing and updates are restricted to authenticated users.
  • Profile updates are limited to the user or admins.
  • User listing is exclusive to admins.
  • Product browsing is open to all, but interactions (e.g., creating, updating) require authentication.
• Email Verification: Ensures all users are part of the NIT Rourkela community via @nitrkl.ac.in email validation.

User Experience

• Responsive Frontend: A modern, mobile-friendly interface for browsing products, managing profiles, and listing items, built with Next.js.
• Intuitive Navigation: Easy access to categories, user profiles, and product details, with clear calls-to-action like "Contact Seller".
• Real-Time Updates: Product listings and user profiles reflect changes instantly, ensuring a dynamic experience.

Project Structure

• Backend: A Django REST Framework API handling user authentication, OTP verification, and product management. See NITR-Mart-Backend/README.md for API details.
• Frontend: A responsive web application for user interaction, including product browsing, listing, and WhatsApp redirection. See NITR-Mart-Frontend/README.md for frontend details.

Vision

NITR Mart aims to be the go-to platform for NIT Rourkela’s campus community, fostering trust, convenience, and sustainability. Future enhancements may include:

• Search and filtering by category, price, or keyword.
• In-app messaging for buyer-seller communication.
• Rating/review system for sellers.
• Integration with campus events for bulk sales (e.g., graduating students).

Contact

For feedback or contributions, reach out to the development team:

• Email: nitrmart2027@gmail.com
• GitHub: NITR-Mart-Repo