E-Commerce Website having a Niche in Books

Abstract

Everyone knows how expensive schools, colleges, and tuition fees are today. One such expense that everyone unconsciously ignores, is the high cost of college and school textbooks. Buying and selling used books have been the latest thing in the present. The main motive of this paper is to provide the masses, with a way to sell and buy used books Online. In this paper, we will present the working of our website and the intention behind it. Our website, Pustak.com is going to be an online platform that specializes in purchasing and selling second-hand used books. It will be a customer-to-customer platform to buy and sell books. Our website will help customers to browse through a catalog of books. Finally, We want to create an ecosystem where every Reader gets the book he/she wants.

Introduction

I. INTRODUCTION

In the age of globalization and innovation, many individuals still adhere to the fundamentals of reading. These individuals are more inclined towards printed books than technology-based gadgets like mobile or Amazon kindle. But all these devices radiate harmful light which hurts our eyes after long usage. Furthermore, these gadgets are very expensive and not everybody can afford them. Despite this, there is a large sum of users who prefer e-books. These online purchased books are quite expensive for a lot of people. Our solution here is to provide the users with a medium or a platform for buying or selling used books. Not only people can get the book they want but they could share knowledge by selling it online on our website, pustak.com. [3]

Pustak.com will be an online marketplace or website to buy and sell used books. Our website will offer books across multiple categories including engineering & medical books, school books, competitive exam books, magazines, and many more.

Our website will allow users to sell and buy textbooks by entering the details like personal information and book's ISBN& its condition.

Few keen readers in today’s world need more than one book to read. People want to read books from different publications and authors. We are here to help them by providing second-hand used books to as many publications/authors as they want.

Also, many people want to read a lot of books but cannot afford them. Our website will always be there to extend hands to such users by providing quality, assured used books.

We are not only increasing the life span of the books when we provide them to our readers again, but we will also save trees by saving books from getting wasted.[1]

We needed to know whether individuals are having any involvement with purchasing used books. So we conducted a study with a survey through Google Forms. We wanted to know whether there are customers who have any experience in buying second-hand books.

The result that we obtained are displayed below:-

II. LITERATURE REVIEW/RELATED WORK

Here are 2 websites, which has similar motive and approach, these are-

1. Book Flow: This website only allows the seller to post an ad of their used book on their website which is not quite reliable
2. MyPustak: This website is more inclined towards donations of used books.

We have found two reference papers related to our work they are given below

a. First one emphasis more towards the process of, people’s demands of life’s, quality improving people’s living standards and efficiency in people’s life with the help of online bookstores.[2]

b. Another research paper that we found emphasized a lot about the client section which consists of the dealer, purchaser, and donator. The research paper emphasized the idea of a web bookstore, where buyers can browse the catalog and select books of interest. Users can select many books and those books are stored in a cart. At checkout, the books within the handcart are going to be presented as an order.[1]

III. METHODOLOGY

A. Our 2 Modules

Our online bookstore website system is divided into two process- one for the consumer, and the other for the sellers.

1) For the Buyers: 1st process is logging into the account and browsing through the catalog of the books in our website, 2nd process is to add the books to the cart, 3rd  process is chatting and negotiating with the seller, 4th  process involves the seller and buyer deciding and meeting at a common location for the exchange.

2) For the Sellers: 1st process is logging into the account and clicking on the sell option on the top right corner, 2nd process involves writing description for the book which the seller wants to sell like the Name of the Book, Author, Edition, Condition of the book, Uploading of the photos, Sellers  Location, Sellers name, phone number and giving a rough estimation costing for the book, 3rd  process is chatting and negotiating with the customer in the chat page whenever a customer wants to buy the sellers book, , 4th  process involves the seller and buyer deciding and meeting at a common location for the exchange.

We have made use of different coding languages for the development of our website-

1. HTML- HTML or Hypertext Markup Language, helps the users to create and develop sections, headings of the website, and quick links. Users can also create everything that a typical web page consists of.
2. CSS- CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) helps describe a document’s presentation in HTML or XML. XML like SVG, MathML, or XHTML. CSS helps in rendering elements on screen like the style and layout of web pages. If one wants to alter the font, color, size, and spacing of your content then CSS is the best tool available. Animations and decorative features on a webpage can also be done using CSS.
3. JavaScript- JavaScript helps programmers around the world to develop interactive web content like browsers. It is very popular among programmers and is the most used programming language in the world.

For the backend and storage of the data, we have used-

a. PHP- Hypertext Preprocessor- PHP scripts are used for making web servers. It runs on browsers, so if you don't feel like showing your code output in the browser, you can show it in the terminal.

b. MySQL- is a database management system. MySQL is used to access and process data stored in a database of websites.

c. XAMPP- XAMPP is used to build an easy-to-install distribution for developers to get into the world of Apache. To make it convenient for developers, XAMPP is configured with all features turned on.[1][5]

First, the customer or buyer has to add the books which he wants to buy to the cart. When a buyer clicks the "Add to Cart" button on a product page, the item is added to their shopping cart. The cart page displays the product name, image, estimated price range, and other necessary details.

Buyers can also edit the cart. Next is calculating the total cost which displays the total cost of all the items in the cart.

Once the buyer confirms the order for the books he will be redirected to the chat page where he can talk with the seller. The buyers and the sellers can confirm a location to meet for the exchange.[5]

On our chat page, the buyer and seller can discuss the details of the transaction, negotiate prices, ask questions, and decide on a location to meet. We have provided the users with the chat page to allow the buyers and the sellers for efficient communication. Our chat eliminates the need for long email exchanges or phone calls. Both parties can also share files, images, or links related to the transaction.[5]

V. NOVELTY FEATURES/FINDINGS

Here are some novelty features that could be implemented to enhance the user experience:

Implementing JSP  and Servlet technology, with a C3P0 connection to connect to MySQL database for development.

Front interface can be designed using Dreamweaver.

Finally, the page effects can be done using the JavaScript language and its library function jQuery.

"Canva" can be used to design logos and other various design elements for the website.

Book Swap: Allow users to exchange books with each other, either through a virtual or physical swap.

Book Ratings: Allow users to rate books and provide reviews. This can help other users make informed decisions about which books to read.

These are just a few examples of novelty features that could be implemented. Ultimately, the features that are included should be tailored to the needs and preferences of the target audience.[3][5]

VI. FUTURE SCOPE

Traditional, people would give their used books to their close friends or family members. But still, the majority of people have their used books lying on their bookshelves. We want to create and develop an ecosystem no used book gest wasted by lying on bookshelves because books are meant to share and spread knowledge and information, not to get dusted on bookshelves. We want to develop an environment where each and every Reader gets the book’s older edition or newer edition. For the future scope we can implement GPS technology in our website, detecting the condition of the book through image processing, improving the UI and UX of our website, and making the chatting, and the uploading of the process of photos more responsive.

Conclusion

Our website is a platform for users to buy and sell used second hands books with ease. Users can sell their used books as a vendor/sellers. Users can make the payments when both the seller and the buyer meet at a location for buying or selling. [3]

References

[1] Ganesh G B, Gautham C R, and Nitish Kumar Gupta, volume 9:7 July 2021, K S institute of technology, Bengaluru, India [2] Yunkai Zhai and Wei lu , MATEC:Web of conferences , January 2017 [3] Carlos Flavian, Raquel Gurrea and Carlos Orús, Journal of System and information technology .11(2):168-164, May 2009 [4] Fatin Najwa Binti Abdullah Sani1 , Hani Malini binti Majek2, Umairah binti Ahmad Khairudin3 , Abdul Rahman bin Ahmad Dahlan4, International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, Volume 7, Issue 6, June 2017 [5] Prasad NK, Varun Kishore, Omprakash; Volume: 07 Issue: 05 | May 2020; International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) [6] Ms. Pragati Bagmare, Ms. Shraddha Girhepunje, Ms. Priya Bisen, Volume 5, Issue 4., 2017, International Journal for Research in Applied Science & Engineering Technology (IJRASET

Copyright

Copyright © 2023 Amruta A. Bhawarthi, Vallabh Kathar, Ajinkya Kaulwar, Prathmesh Katepallewar, Maitrey Katkar, Abhishek Katore, Soham Kature. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.