Matching buyers with sellers: commodities available at certain times (appropriate software?)

[RSS_2022]

Hi,

I work for an agency, each of whose members can both buy and sell commodities. We have software to match people up, but it's ancient (UNIX-based) and not intuitive or straightfoward to use.

Unfortunately, we're stuck using the current system for now, but I'd like to create an ancillary database, with all the members' stock listed.

For example:

Craig calls us up to say he has 20 pumpkins for sale, but they'll be too old to sell in five days' time.
Mary tells us she'll be picking 50 pumpkins next week, so they're not ready for sale until then, but will last until early next month.
John wants to buy 40 pumpkins in time for Hallowe'en to sell in his shop, which overlaps with Mary's being available.
I enter this information into the software/database... then it notifies me somehow that Mary can fulfil John's order.

The database would need to match up who is selling a commodity at a particular time with buyers. Each entry of commodities for sale should show quantity available, type (e.g. are the apples red or green), duration available, and other notes. For my records of people wanting to buy commodities, the same categories should be available.

Notification of a match is important.

Does anybody know if such a program exists off the peg, without costing the earth? It seems like it would be possible to create something that works using Excel scripts, but also that it would be far beyond my capability to create it!

Any help much appreciated.

 

[japancool]

Depends what you define as "costing the earth". This is a fairly simple requirement that you could do in a relational database, depending on how you want the notifications and front end.

Heck, it wouldn't take more than 2-3 days to knock it up in Microsoft Access (not that I'm suggesting you go down this route).

 

[fisicx]

It’s the sort of thing a database can do without breaking into a sweat. It’s the notifications that may be an issue. If you want push notifications you need an app. And everyone would need the app installed. Then you need a way for Mary to process the order and another message for John to expect delivery.

You could do it with emails but it’s less efficient.

I doubt very much there is an off the shelf product. But a project like this could be developed for a couple of grand plus the app costs.

 

[RSS_2022]

Thanks very much japancool and fisicx.

By not wanting it to cost the earth, I suppose it means it wouldn't be worth it if we have to hire someone to code it, or spend more than say £200 to buy something off the peg that would work, or even some sort of freeware or a VB script for Excel. We're having a major piece of software developed, which will include the sort of function I'm looking for, but it won't be ready until mid-2023 at the earliest, so I was just looking for a simple stopgap to make life easier until then.

I hadn't heard the term "relational database" before, but when I searched it, the sort of "floating boxes with arrows connecting them" idea was the first thought I had when trying to work out in my head what it would look like. Maybe on the supplier side, when a supplier's commodity and time available matches with a potential buyer in another box, they would go the same colour or get marked in bold or something, to mean "match found".

I wouldn't need it to send out notifications to sellers/buyers automatically (that would end up putting me out of a job!). I'd only want it to let me know when there's a match so I can progress the sale as the agent.

Perhaps I'll have a look into Oracle, MySQL and things like that...

In any case, I really appreciate the help from both of you and if I strike gold, I'll post back if it might help someone else.

 

[japancool]

If you're the only person who needs to be notified, then it's far less sophisticated, depending on how you want the notifications.

If I had the time, I'd offer to do it for you myself (although not for £200!), but unfortunately, I don't have time for external work at the moment. You could probably get something knocked together on Upwork for peanuts. As I said, shouldn't take more than a couple of days for someone who knows what they're doing to hack something up.

 

[fisicx]

Without the notifications it becomes a lot simpler but you won't find anyone who can do this for £200. Except on a bottom feeder freelancer site but you will just end up with garbage.

Building the database isn't complicated part. What takes all the time is developing the input functions (to upload all the data) and the outputs (your notifications).

How for example to you get all the data from Craig, John and Mary? Are you going to sit and type everything into the DB? Or do you want some sort of automation? With these sort of projects is the data management that costs all the money not building the database tables and queries.

 

[RSS_2022]

You've both been really helpful, thank you. I'll maybe just keep a simple Excel thing for now. Would have been nice to get something a bit more automated, but possibly more trouble than it's worth in the short term.

I thought there might have been off-the-peg software for this kind of thing. Agencies doing a similar kind of work are fairly common and, if it's not that hard for someone who knows coding, you'd think there would be some easy-to-use/maintain GUI for such a database.

In any case, thanks very much for your help!

 

[fisicx]

There are lots of tools you could adapt but not for £200. Your monthly subscription will be more than this. And it would be a subscription package as almost nobody sells software these days, it’s all about monthly income.

 

[UkAppCoder]

Ooh sounds like this job was made especially for me and I for it!

As you can see, I certainly have the pumpkin head for it, and I have been a bit of a Halloween horror of late (but which has now, thankfully, ended).

If I were the paranoid type, then I might think this was a bitter bait for a phish! (See what I did there?)

Therefore, I'm going to say ... ... that actually I don't think I'd like to say that it's possibly so or not!

fisicx - couple of grand?! I wish! I've done this job so many times over the last 20-odd years that I could almost give it away! Also, agree somewhat with your "bottom feeder" comments regarding freelancer site programmers, but with the caveat that some of the best brains on the planet have been through and continue to go through those places. I still work with a couple of them now and again, and I hope to be contacting others within the next couple of years.