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A Monero-centric Merchant Web Store 

layout: fr
title: Monero-centric Merchant Web Store
author: Lance Allen <github.com/lalanza808>
date: 17 Jan, 2020
amount: 55
milestones:
  - name: Design the application architecture and general workflows; server/app management, inventory/stock management, buying/selling processes, etc.
    funds: 6
    done:
    status: unfinished
  - name: Write tests that define the expected operation of the application components (DB models, routes, views, classes/methods/functions, etc)
    funds: 12
    done:
    status: unfinished
  - name: Write code that meets the test requirements and build the application
    funds: 12
    done:
    status: unfinished
  - name: Build integrations for simple deployment into 2 cloud providers (DigitalOcean and AWS)
    funds: 15
    done:
    status: unfinished
  - name: Document the application and common operational procedures (backup/restore, update, decommission, etc)
    funds: 10
    done:
    status: unfinished
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EDIT: The original idea was to build a multi-tenant marketplace where sellers could sign up to sell merchandise. After receiving some feedback I've decide to make this a web store with easy ways to launch one into various cloud providers so anyone can deploy it for their business.

Who

My name is Lance. I am a sysadmin/devops/infra/security engineer and staunch supporter of privacy improving technologies, open-source software, and individual freedom. I'm a big fan of Monero and the community oriented focus that everyone has. So far I have only made minor contributions to projects in the Monero ecosystem; the monero-python library and my recent project, XMR Auctions. Here are some links to my online presence to learn more about me:

What

A Monero Merchant Web Store - a simple web application for vendors and businesses to establish their own dedicated, online store-front to sell their goods in exchange for Monero. The general idea is that anyone who would like to have their own online store could provision it rapidly and start selling products rather than dealing with the hoopla of setting things up from scratch.

The application would facilitate integrating the vendor's wallet into their personalized store so that they receive payment from items sold. Vendors would be able to customize the look and feel of their web store and manage their stock/supply. Simple metrics could be collected on the usage of visitors and buyers so that vendors can visualize and report on their activity as a merchant.

I am most comfortable writing Python code and would likely be using a framework like Django or Flask (probably Django). The code for this project would be open source, available on Github, and MIT licensed.

Why

The only vendors in the market currently supporting purchases with Monero are those with the technical know-how or with a strong enough will to do so. As a result, they are very niche; not a lot of options besides t-shirts, hats, and coffee mugs.

In addition, there is a lot involved with standing up the infrastructure to support an e-commerce shop; domain registration, DNS, email, hosting, server management, applications, databases, etc. It's very overwhelming for a non-technical person to get started with all of those things, and while there are plenty of sites that will do that for you (Etsy, Shopify, Square, etc), they are large, publicly traded companies that are more focused on providing returns to their share-holders. I personally would like to see a grass roots effort to support small business and online shops.

Having a very simple way to provision your own web-store could be an enticing new option for business owners and entrepreneurs. We could potentially bring in many more people into the Monero community to support it as well as bolster the availability of goods and services transacted with Monero.

When

In my current situation with family and work I foresee this taking anywhere from six months to one year. I can prototype things together fairly quickly but for this it would be best to take it slow and steady with lots of testing and validation so we get some clean quality code. The most time consuming milestones will be writing tests and writing the code.

Edited by Lance Allen