Digital Marketplace

The digital market platform is bringing together regional producers, enabling the promotion of their organic or certified food and products and making easier for interested parties to purchase goods. The platform will enable customers to purchase organic or certified food from the involved producers or small retailers. New services will be implemented in the system to verify the marked products and to monitor the conditions affecting the quality of the transported goods.

Key Components

Digital Market Place:

  • Complex component with functionality enabling trading and user management i.e. to offer goods to the merchant and to buy the goods to the customer.

  • It contains these basic components – the authorization and authentication component, the administration component and the business component itself.

  • Connector to the verification engine utilizes data from IoT sensors and other sources to authenticate the integrity and origin of products listed in the marketplace. This component ensures, automated verification workflows, connection to blockchain-based THEROS traceability ledger.

  • A unique component is the “Verification of transport conditions” component, which ensures the display of data obtained by the sensor network during the monitoring of conditions during the transport of goods from the producer to the customer.

  • The solution also includes a connection with the Atlas Regional Attractions promotional website (external component), which enables the mutual sharing of information and the promotion of organic food and protected brands in the region and in the tourism sector.

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Key components of the digital marketplace

Market App:

  • Basic business component providing the business activities themselves. The component is built on the technological solution PrestaShop Marketplace Builder and ensures the functionality of the central catalog with the support of multivendor options (that is, individual access of different sellers to the marketplace).

  • This component also integrates other components for the basic functionality of the marketplace – payment system, dashboard, customer management, store management, sales and product actions, stock management, review and rating system.

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Market App

Administration component:

  • Also based on the PrestaShop Marketplace Builder, the component provides the back-end interface for sellers to manage their goods, stocks, customers and conduct business activities within the marketplace.

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Administration interface for sellers

Authentication/Authorization component:

  • Component responsible for verifying sellers and customers and granting them appropriate access to the marketplace’s features.

Connector to the verification engine:

  • The THEROS Verification Engine is a core component integrated into the digital marketplace to ensure the trustworthiness and authenticity of organic and geographically indicated food products. It operates as a middleware between the marketplace, the IoT sensor network, and the blockchain-based traceability ledger.

  • The Verification Engine supports automated and semi-automated verification workflows that flag inconsistencies, anomalies, or gaps in the traceability data.

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THEROS integration components

Transport-condition Verification component:

  • Interface for integration of IoT-Based Transport Condition Verification Component

  • A unique innovation in the THEROS Digital Marketplace is the integration with the THEROS IoT Sensor Network (independent tool developed in the Task T3.3. This component visualizes environmental parameters (e.g., temperature, humidity) recorded during the transport of organic goods. Key features include:

    • deployment of smart transport boxes with QR tags,
    • real-time sensor data display per delivery,
    • threshold-based alerts on temperature excursions,
    • historical traceability of transport conditions,
    • linkage of delivery data to each order and product batch.

    This data is presented in the user interface as part of the product or delivery information, strengthening transparency and compliance assurance.

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Sensors in the box & data visualization

Atlas of the Regional Attractions component:

  • Expansion of mutual information sharing and promotion of organic food and protected brands in the region and in the tourism sector.

Interfaces

  • Main communication is solved via REST API with various encoding formats, direct communication using JSON. PrestaShop enables merchants to give third-party tools access to their shop’s database through a CRUD API, otherwise called a web service.

  • Market App communicate via REST API with external systems like SensLog Data Management and Atlas of Regional Attractions.

Services

  • Customers: The Digital Marketplace offers a comprehensive suite of services designed to optimize the shopping experience for customers:

    • Wide Product Selection: The marketplace provides a diverse array of products, ensuring customers can find nearly everything they need in one location.
    • User-Friendly Interface: Customers benefit from an intuitive interface that simplifies navigation and product discovery, making the shopping process seamless and straightforward.
    • Efficient Order Fulfilment: An automated system handles orders from purchase through to delivery, including precise shipment tracking and regular updates, which enhance the convenience of the buying process.
    • Order history: This section provides a comprehensive overview of all past transactions made by a customer. This section includes detailed information such as order references, dates, statuses, payment methods, and total amounts. Customers can easily track the progress of their orders, view invoice details, and re-order previously purchased items.
    • Direct Contact with Sellers: An integrated messaging system allows easy communication with sellers for inquiries or assistance, enhancing customer service and support. Customers can also use additional producer’s services, if available.
    • Address management: Functionality that allows both customers and administrators to efficiently manage multiple addresses associated with user accounts. Customers can easily add, update, and delete their shipping and billing addresses through their personal account interface, ensuring accurate delivery and invoicing.

  • Sellers (Producers/Retailers): The Digital Marketplace offers a fully managed PrestaShop platform tailored for sellers, providing a comprehensive suite of features designed to support every aspect of running a successful online business. Sellers are equipped with user-friendly tools for quickly and easily listing and managing products. Sellers are able to manage a database of their customers, their orders and create price promotions. The automated order fulfilment system streamlines the management of orders, shipping, and auto-email notifications, simplifying operations and enhancing efficiency.

  • All:  Displaying the result and verification protocol of the monitoring of transport conditions provides all interested parties with information about the progress of transport and the risk of quality changes due to transport conditions.
    All: GDPR compliance: Managing GDPR compliance is streamlined through comprehensive features that allow users to handle their personal data with ease. The platform provides tools to facilitate data access, modification, and deletion requests from users, ensuring that all personal data is managed in accordance with GDPR regulations. Administrators can generate detailed data reports, track consent, and manage data portability.

Usage and applications

THEROS digital marketplace is developed to enhance the resilience of the organic food industry against adulteration and non-compliance while promoting sustainability and ethical farming practices. It aims to authenticate organic products and strengthen the connection between producers and consumers, thereby increasing the availability of organic products. This initiative is part of a broader effort to establish a transparent, secure, and efficient supply chain that benefits all stakeholders involved.

The platform integrates various functions including producer presentations, product offerings, demand records, interconnectivity, delivery options, and payment systems, enhancing its operational efficiency.

A significant advantage of this marketplace is its integration with a sensor network within the transportation system, which monitors the conditions of goods in route. This feature ensures the integrity and authenticity of organic products by providing real-time data on transportation conditions, thereby boosting consumer confidence and accountability among producers.

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Organic and regional product labels