Reverse Auction Application for Merchants & Service Providers PHP

We have designed a reverse auction website/application to help merchants search for and acquire services from business service providers.

We are looking for this site to support one type of services provider; however, for the purposes of this writing, we are not providing the specifics of the type of service provider. We have already designed the application and only require a little bit of consultation, but mainly just the coding of the auction application.

We would like the application to be coded using PHP & MySQL. We are also requesting that the programmer utilize a PHP framework. We prefer if the programmer uses the CakePHP framework; however, if the programmer has another framework they rather use, please let us know what that framework is, and why they prefer that framework; be as specific and technical as possible. If, for some reason, you don't believe a framework is necessary or not in the best interest of the project, please let us know why; again be as technically detailed as possible.

Below you’ll find the basic functionality of the application we’re asking to be coded; this is only an outline. There are specifics to this project, but for our protection they are not being provided in this writing.

The specifics we provide not only detail application functionality but also includes about 90+% of the applications logic. We have a PHP & SQL programmer that has written the specifics in English/ pseudo-code in order to reduce consultative costs. We’re basically looking for a programmer to turn our English/pseudo-code into a working application using PHP&SQL via a PHP framework.

From the outline below you will have a basic understanding of what we’re looking for. We have already taken the time to hash out the details of about 95% of what you see below. So when you see the first bullet it says “Login for merchants”; understand that we have already created the database table for merchants and have listed the form fields that we want to be used, as well as what the application should do prior to saving the data into the merchant’s table. This is the type of detail we will be providing.

Without further ado, here is the basic functionality of the application.

The application is a reverse auction for merchants and service providers. Merchants can register for an account. Merchant’s must submit credit card information, which is held by a third party gateway, for the purpose of applying necessary future charges to the merchant. Once the merchant provides, and we verify, the credit card information, the merchant is allowed to create “shops”. Shops are the equivalent to a profile. They include generic business information. These shops can be submitted to the reverse auction. The shops will be viewable by service providers for an amount of time specified by the merchant. For the purpose of anonymity, the information such as name, street address, etc… of merchants or their shops will not be viewable to service providers. This helps reduce the chance of a service provider contacting a merchant outside of the auction. The contact information for the merchants will be provided to the winning bidder of the auction.

Service providers, on the other hand, will not be able to freely register for a service provider account. Service providers must contact us with the request. We will then provide the service provider with an email, which includes a security code via Hyperlink. The code will be used to verify that a service provider was authorized to register an account. Once a service provider has registered, they have the ability to view shops seeking bids and also submit bids on the shops. When a service provider’s bid is chosen as the winning bid, the service provider is sent an email informing them of the win as well as finally providing all of the necessary contact information about the merchant.

That was a basic synopsis of what the application does. Hopefully it will provide a good enough base for your to better understand the following.

Merchants
•Login for merchants
•Merchants can edit their profile
•Merchants can add multiple shops/businesses
•Shops with multiple locations are linked via a common identifier
•Merchants can edit shop information
•Merchants can submit their created shops to a reverse auction to be bid on by service providers
•Merchants can view bids received from service providers
•Merchants can hide bids they are not interested in
•Merchants can unhide bids they are interested in
•Merchants can accept a bid from one service provider

Service Providers
•Login for service providers
•Service providers can edit their profile
•Service providers can view shops submitted to the reverse auction
•Services providers can order and filter the submitted shops within the reverse auction
•Service providers can select shops to submit bids for
•Service providers are notified of multiple locations associated with a shop they are viewing
•Service providers are notified of multiple shops owned by the owner of the shop they are viewing
•Service providers can submit a bid on a shop
•Service providers can view the status of their submitted bids
•Service providers are notified, via email, when a bid is won.
•Service providers are provided with the contact information of the merchant when they win a bid

Administrators (3 groups/levels)
•Group1 (merchant administration)
•Edit merchant account information
•Edit merchant shop information
•Prepare & submit shops on behalf of merchants
•Send emails to merchants
•Disable merchant accounts

•Group2 (service provider administration)
•Send emails to service providers
•Edit service providers information
•Disable service providers accounts

•Group3 (site administration)
•Inherits group1 rights
•Inherits group2 rights
•Generate system reports

General Reports
# Merchants
# Shops
# Service providers
# Shops Alive
# Bids Alive
# Service provider & Merchant IP Address matches

Merchant Reports
# Merchants that have submitted store profile for bid
# Merchants that have awarded bids
Awarded to Submitted ratio per merchant
Total merchant’s monthly volume (all / industry)

Service provider Reports
# Bids service provider has won per service provider
# Bids service provider has lost per service provider
Won to submitted ratio per service provider

•Send email to all merchants (cc admin1 & admin3).
•Send email to all service providers (cc admin2 & admin3).
•Send email to each administrator groups.
•Disable auction system

Although these are the very basics, it is definitely the meat and potatoes, so to speak, of what we’re looking for. There are some aspects of the application that will be required that are not specifically mentioned such as the ability to sort the bid tables and other type functionality we would expect to find with an application such as this.

We are also considering creating tools for merchants and service providers to aid in the submission and organization of both their shops and bids as well as make the auction information accessible form handheld devices. We don’t anticipate this programmer to fulfill any of these tools/functionality, we are just mentioning it in case any programmer has experience with such functionality or may have some ideas on how best to code the application in order to make integrating these types of functions easier in the future.

If you have any specific questions, you’re probably not the only one, so just let us know and we’ll be more than happy to respond.

Thanks

Have you found someone for this project yet?