Inspiration
I have seen many women in my neighbors who are highly skilled in sewing styled clothes and stitching. Most of the women who live in our society, only go to these women for sewing their clothes. So, Being highly skilled in Stitching and sewing, most of these have no orders to sew clothes and earn because they have low customers (or only customers living in this society). Even, very few people know about that woman who has these types of skills. Because they don't have a proper platform to showcase their skills.
Some women did this work due to their interest and some due to some compulsion. Due to low household income of men, mostly women are earning money through sewing and stitching. Using the lower-middle-income poverty rate, the World Bank (WB) estimated that the poverty ratio in Pakistan stood at 34.7 percent in 2020-21. And the poverty trend is rising. As 49.2% of Pakistan’s population is women. So why Women can't take part to give potential to the economy of Pakistan. According to Pakistan Culture, sewing and stitching skills are teaching to women from their childhood by saying that they are girls and these skills are necessary for their marriage. So if women can also earn by using their skills, then the family financial conditions will be improved. That's the first reason to make this app.
On the other side, in families on wedding occasions, Eid occasions and even normally, everyone is looking for a tailor to sew their clothes. Some people looking for tailors for fitting their clothes, some sew, some want to add embroidery, etc. For finding a tailor at a suitable price, they have to go to different tailors at different areas. If one tailor denied sewing their clothes especially on Chaand Raat of Eid, so they start looking for others which will waste a lot of time, waste fuel of vehicles and give extra trouble and tension. As "A stitch in time saves nine".
That inspires me to create an app that solves both sides problem for women who have skills and for those who are looking for a tailoress to sew their clothes. Mostly women are interested in sewing their clothes to the latest trend of fashion and are looking for women tailor to sew fashionable clothes for them. This app also solves low customer problems for women. To tell the world about the women who have skills and reach more customers to them, is the basic motive of this app.
What it does
Currently, My app allows users to register and create a portfolio about their work and showcase it to the world. The app also helps the users (who are looking for someone to sew, stitch or fit their clothes) to find highly skilled women for sewing and stitching their clothes. Registration is done only for general users. If someone is tailoress, then she will create her profile by navigating to Add Service Page. Otherwise she will act as customer and can look for tailoress. This app has also a map to search for all tailoress in their nearest area but this functionality is not completed yet. This app is eliminating the barrier between tailoress and customers by bringing them to a single platform.
How I built it
I built it using
- Flutter technology.
- MapBox Map (because its free to use to some limit),
- MapBox places api, and
- Firebase Storage.
Marketing Strategy
- Currently, this app will target those women who live in Karachi.
- Then after reviewing first-year statistics, it will move to bigger cities of Pakistan and also target men tailors.
- At last, it will available for all Pakistan including remote areas so that women in remote areas can take benefit too.
The marketing platforms include YouTube + website ads, bloggers, Brochures, Word of mouth, and Social Media. The goal is to achieve "When someone needs a tailor, they think of WeTailoress".
Challenges I ran into
This is my first Hackathon and also This is my first app on Flutter Technology. When I heard about this hackathon, I started learning about a flutter with firebase for two weeks. I have two weeks to complete the app. I have no hope to complete it on time. But I tried. As a newbie to complete the project, I faced a lot of challenges.
First, I have to put effort into the decoration of Input fields and elevated Button in flutter for login and signup screen 😣. Then, I easily created the cards. But Then I implement map functionality, which takes me 5 days 😎. Because there are few videos to integrate the MapBox map. I first tried different packages for MapBox, but then flutter_map works. 😃
Types in flutter are also challenging, setting different types to data😞. A lot of errors came due to type errors also. As in JavaScript, I never worked on types. As it makes things difficult and slow to develop.
Then, the second challenge was to make a dropdown in a flutter of Map Search Place. I searched about this on StackOverflow. which takes my whole 1 day.
Then, I have to work with versions issue in a flutter. It takes a lot of time. Because Dio package uses some other HTTP version and flutter_map uses some other HTTP issue.
Image uploading was the most challenging issue for me. Because of the image_picker version, 5 times my Gradle crashed again and again. And it was done on the night of 1st October. I left the hope to submit the app. but then I just change view that the date extended and it makes me happy a lot. The next Day, I again searched for the Gradle issue and according to StackOverflow, the 7.0.2 image picker version works fine with my app. 😃😃
The last thing was Firebase Storage, which took one day but as I have never worked with Firebase Storage, so it’s a new learning for me.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
I feel really good to develop an app that will help the women of Pakistan to improve their financial conditions by using their skills. An app that also helps users who are looking for tailors urgently so that time will be saved.
In Technology,
I am proud when my image picker works correctly. Because this gives me hope that my flutter project can run without any crashes and I can complete it.😄
I am proud when I move my apiKey of the map to the .env file. And successfully imported in the .dart Files. 😄
What I learned
I learned a lot of new things in a flutter. GridView, version issue-resolving, SingleChildScrollView, BottomPopup (which I am using for rating Review), Integrating mapBox🤩, Mapbox place search api🤩, Classes and Classes types, Dio, Image Picker, Firebase Storage🤩 and DotEnv. 😄😄
The main thing I learned is "Never Leave whatever problem you're facing".
What's next for WeTailoress
A lot of functionalities on which I have to work, which are remaining.
These includes:
Adding Order system : Customer can order with the tailoress, tell about the clothes sizes and designs. Record of all orders, management of orders, etc.
Adding Measurement Section while Booking : Customer can add measurements to send the tailor to sewing the clothes according to their size. It also includes a voice sending feature to send measurements which will help customers not to waste time on typing.
Tailoress Profile : Tailoress profile will be developed to show all orders with history, reviews, ratings and Income Statistics.
Chat Functionality : Customer and tailoress can chat about the order in the
WeTailoress Appchat.Payment Integration : A lot of tailoresses said that they can't get their money on time after completing the order. So, I think a payment integration is also necessary to start order and deliver money to tailoress on time.
Nearest Tailoress - This functionality is incomplete now. This will help customers to find tailoress nearest customer house.
Review : Currently, customers are seeing the only ratings of the tailoress. In the Future, Text Reviews are also be added so that customers can read others’ reviews to select the best tailoress for their work.
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