Online Auction System

A comprehensive web-based platform for online auctions, allowing users to bid on products, manage auctions, and track their bidding history. This project demonstrates a full-stack implementation using the MERN stack with modern frontend technologies.

🚀 Technologies

Frontend

• Framework: React (Vite)
• Styling: TailwindCSS, Shadcn UI (Radix UI + Class Variance Authority)
• State/Data Fetching: Axios, React Query (implied/recommended)
• Forms: React Hook Form, Zod
• Routing: React Router DOM
• Editor: React Quill, TinyMCE

Backend

• Runtime: Node.js
• Framework: Express.js
• Database: MongoDB, Mongoose
• Authentication: Passport.js, JWT, Google OAuth
• Utilities: Multer (File Upload), Node-Cron (Scheduled Tasks), Nodemailer (Email), Bcrypt (Security)

✨ Features

This project implements various modules for different user roles:

👤 Guest (Anonymous)

• View categories and products (with pagination).
• Advanced full-text search and filtering options.
• View Top 5 products (Ending Soon, Most Bids, Highest Price).
• Product details with relative time display (e.g., "ends in 3 days").
• Register for a Bidder account (with OTP verification).

🙋 Bidder

• Bidding: Real-time bidding (requires >80% reputation).
• Auto-bidding: Set a maximum price for automatic incremental bidding.
• Watchlist: Add items to favorites.
• History: View own bidding history and won auctions.
• Feedback: Rate sellers after successful transactions.
• Seller Request: Request upgrade to Seller status.

🏪 Seller

• Post Auctions: Create listings with images, descriptions (Rich Text), and auto-extensions.
• Management: Review bidder history, deny bids, and cancel transactions if necessary.
• Feedback: Rate winning bidders.

🛡️ Administrator

• Manage Categories (CRUD).
• Manage Products (Remove listings).
• Manage Users (Approve Seller upgrades, manage accounts).

🛠️ Installation & Setup

Prerequisites

• Node.js (v18+ recommended)
• MongoDB (Local or Atlas URI)

Backend Setup

1. Navigate to the backend directory:

   cd backend

2. Install dependencies:

   npm install

3. Create a .env file in the backend root and configure your environment variables (DB URI, Email credentials, Auth secrets).
4. Start the server:

   npm start
   # OR for development
   npm run dev

Frontend Setup

1. Navigate to the frontend directory:

   cd frontend

2. Install dependencies:

   npm install

3. Start the development server:

   npm run dev

📂 Project Structure

• backend/: Express.js API server, database models, and business logic.
• frontend/: React application, components, and pages.

🤝 Contribution

This is a final project for the "Web Application Development" course.