A Comprehensive Digital Business Directory Platform
Nirav Machhi, Vaibhav Girase, Rudra Varade
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Parul Institute of Technology, Parul University, Gujarat, India
Keywords: Digital Business Directory, Online Listings Platform, Location Based search, Web Application, Package based Monetization, User feedback System.
Abstract
Imagine how similar the local businesses could be found by people in a few decades or even two decades ago. You would turn to a neighbour you would ask him or her to recommend you a good one, pick a phonebook and you would be scouting around the town looking out. These old fashioned techniques though suitable then no longer do the trick. The current consumers have learnt to expect to grab their phones and get what they require within seconds, be it a plumber to arrive and install a faulty pipe or a place to have dinner.
In this paper, we have guided the readers on our ideas towards creating a digital business directory workflow, how we constructed it and tested, and how they can be of value to the businesses and to those in need of them. The company allows companies to make listings and consumers to find products in a site whose design is clean and full of intuitive search functionalities. Our features included categorized listing, location search, varying packages to be offered to the businesses and feedback given by the users. The most important contributions here have been the creation of an adaptable architecture to support free and paid listings, ensuring the interface performs excellently on phones, tablets and computers, and actually analyzing the question of whether the platform is working by getting feedback on user reactions. What we discovered was fairly promising-companies are becoming more visible, users were pleased to be able to find things they wanted and a strong economic relationship among locals was formed. The paid packages proved to be a win-win as the businesses receive increased exposure when they need it and the platform receives a way of sustaining its operations. This study contributes to the existing information about digital marketplaces and provides a piece of practical guidance to whoever is developing such a type of location-based discovery.
