BOX'dOUT

Home Screen
Login BOX'r
Menu Page BOX'r
Product List
Add New Product
BOX'r Profile
Product QR Code
Warehouse Menu
Warehouse Login
Warehouse Product List
QR Scanner to scan BOX'r Product QR
Map Listing all BOX'dOUT Warehouse locations
Scanned Product

The Problem

Many MSME's in our economy face one too many problems. A distinct one would be the transporting of goods from their homes to a static marketplace. The moving of these items everyday from one place to another can cause damage to them, especially if the seller is coming from a rural area or does not have proper road access to and from their point of sales and selling at a single place everyday does not give the seller much market opportunity.

How do we assist small business men and women with the transport, storage and sales of their goods? Well, we designed a system with which MSME's can use to assist them do all three of these things. It's called BOX'dOut (pronounced as Boxed Out).

What does BOX'dOUT do?

BOX'dOUT is an idea built on assisting MSME's with the Transport, Storage and Sales of their product. Our solution targets two groups of people:

Warehouser (Logistics Company/People with storage)
BOX’r (MSME or entities wanting to store, transport and sell items online)

We developed a single mobile application which can be used by both groups based on user access/privilege. The third component is an e-commerce website/API Service that pulls products that are registered and stored in the warehouse from the BOX’dOUT database. (Note: Our submission only has the mobile app component)

The BOX'r can use the mobile application:

1. To record their product, this includes taking photos and entering important details such as a description, product name, etc.
The BOX’r can also use the app to locate the nearest warehouser using the BOX’dOUT system using the Map feature.

On the Warehouser end:

When a BOX’r comes in with their product, the Warehouser using the same app, has the ability to scan a QR Code generated through the BOX’r login with all the details of their product

Build Description

BOX'dOUT was built by one developer. The app developed using Flutter. Firebase was utilized for the back-end services. The specifics in Firebase that were used, are Storage, Authentication and Firestore-Database. A bit of python was used to set authentication privilege's using firebase admin SDK.

Challenges we ran into

We had a couple of challenges:

Trying to simplify the problems faced within our economy.
Had only one usable mobile device and had to find other means to create the submission video.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Have a working prototype that can be used by multiple users, given the time restraint.
Our team consists of my husband and I. We have two kids under 2 and being able to complete a working mobile app while juggling a full time job and two kids was no easy feat.

What we learned

MSME’s face so many problems trying to reach a market, whether domestic or international. So many of these problems are connected and trying to fix one would not really aid the MSME fully.