Chocowi

Features

• Buyers browse and search by category, price, rating and seller location
• Sellers close to the buyer are surfaced on the homepage
• Listing pages with photo galleries, ingredients, allergy info and reviews
• Sign up by email, or with a Google Account
• Sellers set up a storefront as an individual or a company, with a public profile
• Cart and card checkout through Stripe
• Delivery or collection on every order, with a requested date
• Order status timeline and shipment tracking both sides can follow
• Direct chat between buyer and seller, with file attachments
• Wishlist and a saved list of favourite sellers
• Reviews scored on six things, with photos and a public seller reply
• In app notifications with a matching email for every step of an order
• Prices shown in the buyer's own currency using live exchange rates
• Buyers post what they need and sellers send quotes back
• Paid seller membership for lower commission and better placement
• Blog, FAQ centre and homepage banners the admin manages
• Fixed package pricing, or variable pricing by size, flavour and filling
• Quantity discounts, bulk price breaks, sale discounts and paid add ons
• Sellers send a formal quote in chat that the buyer accepts into checkout
• Deposit orders that take part up front and the balance before delivery
• Tax worked out per US state and Canadian province at checkout
• Orders auto complete and pay the seller if the buyer does not confirm in 3 days
• Disputes settled between both sides, or escalated to an admin for a decision
• Refunds returned as platform credit that can be spent on the next order
• Seller earnings dashboard with payouts to Stripe Connect, Wise or PayPal
• PDF invoices, packing slips and account statements
• A separate wholesale market with minimum order quantities and tiered pricing
• Admin panel with analytics, payouts, disputes, fees, categories and campaigns

Challenges and solutions

1. 01

   Challenge

   A cake is not one price. Size, flavour, filling and add ons all change it, and the total has to match in the cart, at checkout and on the invoice.

   Solution

   Modelled pricing as named option groups where each option carries a price difference, snapshotted the exact chosen combination onto the cart item, then recomputed the whole total server side at checkout including fees and tax rather than trusting what the browser sent.

2. 02

   Challenge

   Most custom orders are agreed in conversation, so a quote had to become a real order without anyone retyping it.

   Solution

   Made the offer a structured object inside the chat message, carrying price, delivery terms, add ons, deposit split and buyer questions. Accepting it routes into a checkout that is already priced with fees and tax, and the offer status mirrors into both users' chat documents over Socket.IO.

3. 03

   Challenge

   Large custom orders needed a deposit, but a seller taking the deposit and never finishing is the obvious failure.

   Solution

   Added a deposit order type that can only be created from a chat offer, where the buyer pays part up front and the seller cannot mark the order delivered until the remaining payment has gone through.

4. 04

   Challenge

   Buyers forget to confirm delivery, which would leave sellers unpaid indefinitely.

   Solution

   Set a confirmation deadline three days after the seller marks an order delivered or picked up, then ran a cron that completes those orders, pays the seller, and labels the payment clearly as auto completed with no buyer response.

5. 05

   Challenge

   Running a retail marketplace and a wholesale marketplace usually means building everything twice.

   Solution

   Used Mongoose refPath so one order can point at either a retail product or a B2B listing, and at either a normal seller or a B2B company profile. Orders, chat, payments, disputes, reviews and the admin panel are written once and serve both markets.

6. 06

   Challenge

   Refunds from disputes and cancellations needed to move money back without a card refund every time.

   Solution

   Credited refunds to a platform credit balance on the user, spendable at checkout or on a membership and cashable out through the admin refund queue, which keeps the money on the platform instead of running repeated gateway refunds.