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Kidz101 - Introduction and Feasibility
Kidz101 - Introduction and Feasibility
Kidz 101
Capstone Report
Presented to the
In Partial Fulfillment
Bachelor of Science
In
Computer Science
By
Aisha Lalli
Michelle Phung
Fall 2022
1
The purpose of this project is to provide an e-commerce website tailored toward selling a
variety of merchandise related to children. After the bankruptcy and foreclosure of Toys R Us,
many parents became reliant on e-merchants such as Amazon, Walmart, and Target. The problem
however with these sellers is that the first two favor vendors over consumers and the latter seem
to not be able to keep up with demand. To further elaborate, vendors on Amazon and Walmart
can sell their items according to their judgment often leading to escalating prices on items that
Our goal is to create a marketplace where prices are negotiated behind the scenes and
only the best price gets offered to our customers. Therefore, even though the site will be accessed
by many vendors, the consumer will see only one price for an item. Vendors have the opportunity
to negotiate their prices behind the scenes through the vendor portal. However, our mission is to
provide our consumers with the best-priced goods whilst allowing the general market to adjust.
This can be achieved through the availability of affordable items on the Kidz 101 website.
Many obstacles need to be overcome before Kidz 101 can become what we hope for it to
be. As with any new idea or company, initial funding and laying down the foundations are the
hardest to achieve. However, this project should serve as a prototype for any future investors in
our idea. Our project is too complicated and would have to be fully implemented after the
Table of Contents
PAGE
PART I
Introduction……………………………………………………….……4
Users………………………...…………….……………………4
Feasability………………………………………………………………5
Usefulleness of Project…………………………………………6
Ethical Issues……………………………………………7
Legal Issues……………………………………………..9
Future Enhancements……………………………………………9
PART II
DESIGN REQUIREMENT…………………………………………………………….10
Platform………………………………………………………………...10
Major Functions………………………………………………………...11
PART III
Final Implementatons…………………………………………………...13
Discussion……………………...………………………………………..16
REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………………..20
APPENDIX A……………………………………………………………………………23
APPENDIX B……………………………………………………………………………24
APPENDIX C……………………………………………………………………………28
APPENDIX D……………………………………………………………………………29
APPENDIX E……………………………………………………………………………30
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Part I
Introduction
The project’s name is Kidz 101, and it is an idea for a startup that sells everything related
to children’s merchandise in one online location. The project is a prototype with which we hope
to invite possible investors to fund our e-commerce idea. The website will be designed to
facilitate the shopping experience for the consumers, and also invite children to explore and add
to their wish lists. The site will also facilitate vendors in the process of uploading their
merchandise to the website. It is vital to have a site like Kidz 101 because the online marketplace
has become a vicious shark tank for buyers. Prices fluctuate to absurd numbers and products that
were once available and affordable are now more scarce and often sold at increasing bids.
Users
The users of this application will be the merchants, adult consumers and children. The
seller will go to the seller portal and create an account or login with their existing account. They
would then go to their product list page where they will see all the items they have for sale on the
platform. They can add new products, edit the items and delete them. The consumer would create
an account or login through the consumer portal. That would lead him to his homepage where he
would be able to search for products and select an item and quantity to insert in the shopping
cart. Once ready the consumer would go to the shopping cart and confirm the sale. They would
then be lead to a page where they enter their address and payment information.
Furthermore, children could add items into a list such as Santa’s list or birthday wishes. It
would work the same as the cart, but there would be no option for confirming the order and the
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colors would be more vibrant and appealing to kids. The project will be made available to the
users once it is deployed on Hiroku for the testing period. We plan to upload to a more secure
Feasibility
Amazon is currently the leading e-commerce provider claiming that its main principles of
“customer obsession rather than competitor focus” (Amazon, n.d.). However, it became blatantly
obvious during the pandemic that Amazon did not have control over the prices set by its vendors.
In 2021, a class action complaint was filed against Amazon in the federal court in Washington,
accusing the e-commerce company of violating the Washington Consumer Protection Act,
participating in negligence, and unjust enrichment (Ondeck et al., 2021). The company was
accused of increasing the prices of some items by 1000%; these items included things like toilet
paper, yeast, baking soda, masks, disinfecting wipes, black beans, and others (Ondeck et al.,
2021). Despite Amazon promising to curb these prices, the plaintiffs claim that Amazon has the
power to set price ceilings yet they allow their vendors' prices unfairly.
Another example of price gouging directly related to the solution that we aim to build is
the driving cost of toys on major e-commerce websites. According to Boston 25 News, they
found that many popular holiday toys were marked up anywhere from 50% to nearly 200% due
to third parties trying to take advantage of the supply chain shortage (Kavanaugh, 2021). Our
project aims to combat price gouging and offer stable and predictable pricing for end users.
There are many products online that are similar to our project. Etsy, Amazon, Alibaba,
Walmart, eBay and so many more are all e-commerce sites that involve different vendors and
consumers. There also used to be Toys R Us, which we were initially inspired by, that sold
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children’s items exclusively. This allowed parents to browse through thousands of options, which
were often reasonably priced. Unfortunately, Toys R Us online is no longer around and there are
Our project is unique because we are joining the idea of a competitive e-marketplace
along with an affordable children’s online store. Combined with our team’s disenchantment with
Amazon throughout the pandemic, we want to provide competitive prices that benefit our
consumers. We took this consumer-based, lowest-price approach from Walmart’s physical stores;
noting that Walmart’s online store is different, featuring lots of third-party vendors, and is part of
the problem.
Usefulness of Project
There are many online stores, and many of them sell children’s merchandise but they are
scarce. They often sell apparel, toys, electronics, furniture, and educational items. However,
despite the availability of these sites, consumers often have to overpay for the things they want.
This is because the websites servicing these consumers are set as marketplaces where vendors
can sell their products for the prices that they want. This sounds good and is healthy in a
competitive consumer marketplace; however, if left unchecked it can also lead to price surges
The solution to online price gouging is to create a viable alternative for consumers to buy
their goods. A site that provides fixed low prices that beat the alternative e-markets. This site
should give the vendors with the lowest prices priority listing unless the price is matched by
other sellers. The website’s idea is not new, but in fact, it is an old perspective renewed.
Rewarding sellers with competitive prices is much healthier for an economy than leaving the
marketplace untamed.
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This project is needed to help alleviate the stress that parents have to undergo when it
comes to shopping for their children. Implementing a cheaper and safer alternative for parents to
shop from will offload the financial burden that many parents feel, especially during times of
holidays. A recent study that was conducted by OnePoll.org on behalf of the Toy Association
found that over half of US parents would opt-in to purchasing a cheaper counterfeit version of
the toy that their child would want (Goldman, 2021). Counterfeit versions of toys often do not
comply with federal regulations and toy safety laws, which would pose a risk to children. The
study additionally found that two-thirds of the parents would feel guilty if they couldn’t afford to
buy a toy for their child. Using this website will additionally add the convenience of having
Ethical Issues
Some ethical concerns have risen regarding e-commerce companies. Some of these
concerns affect the vendor and fulfillment side and others affect the consumers. Notably,
Amazon and many e-commerce websites often face backlash due to the large environmental
impact that they leave behind, especially with timely delivery demands. Prime delivers around
13 million packages per day (Holmes, 2020). Even though cardboard boxes are easy to recycle;
hover, because people tend to throw them in single-stream recycling along with food and
plastics, this is creating a pollution and landfill problem (Holmes, 2020). This affects the
environment, poor communities, and future generations but polluting the land with landfills. We
aim to solve this problem by offering boxless deliveries, using returnable baskets for delivery.
Furthermore, Amazon workers have reported an incredible 42% increase in physical pain
due to their day-to-day duties – usually in the feet and lower back. They also noted psychological
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pressures and a deterioration of their normal sleep schedules affecting their mental health. This is
largely due to Amazon’s revolutionary promise of package fulfillment in as little as five hours.
The price that the workers are made to pay for next-day delivery. These practices hurt
working-class employees who have to take laborious jobs to survive. We aim to solve this
problem by having realistic promises that fit our workforce’s abilities and by providing them
There are also many ethical issues concerning the customers of an eCommerce site.
Issues, such as web tracking, data leaks, email spamming, and unreliable customer service. Web
tracking allows websites to track users’ behaviors and sell that data to marketers (Dconan4,
2020). Data stored in the databases are subject to hacking. Stolen user data can often end up in
the hands of scammers and email spammers (F-Secure, 2020). This issue would be especially
problematic if the data collected is that of the child consumer. Despite the world becoming more
data-fied, there is still some consensus that children should be left out of the data marketing
Furthermore, some sites like Amazon have amazing customer service. When a seller falls
short Amazon usually compensates the customer. However, this is not with all eCommerce sites,
which do not do enough to scan the sellers before allowing them onto their sites. These practices
hurt everyone, however, they especially hurt the elderly, the poor, and the unsuspecting users
who may not recognize the extent that their data is released and the conniving activity of
scammers. Kidz101 will not collect data that does not benefit the user directly in his/her
experience on the site, and our sellers will be regularly vetted to keep customer confidence.
Furthermore, items such as children’s wish lists will have a yearly reset option for parents to
keep their children’s choices off the databases and the internet.
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Legal Issues
information (PII) and keeping credit card transactions secure. The PII includes information such
as names, emails, and home addresses. Kidz101 is required under the Customer Information and
Privacy law, which requires companies to ensure that they use proper methods that meet the laws
On the other hand, credit card transactions need to be handled properly. Companies have
to make sure that they’re compliant with security standards such as Payment Card Industry Data
Security Standard (PCI DSS) (“Payment card”, 2022). The PCI DSS has 6 objectives that entail
surrounding networks with firewalls, keeping passwords encrypted, updating anti-virus and
formal information security policy of audits enforced (Tech Target Contributor, 2020).
In 1998 the Child Online Protection Act, congress put into law that that content should be
regulated on public sites for the use of children under 17 years of age. That is because, as the
Supreme Court deemed it, children have a more restrictive interpretation of free speech. That is
because they should be protected from lewd content and other content which could harm their
development (United Nations, 2021). This law means that Kidz101 should be very careful of the
content being sold on our site. Pictures of merchandise, as well as the description and all details,
Future Enhancements
The team plans to continue developing and maintaining this project by continuing to add
features that expand past functionality features. Future enhancements that we would like to
include are security-focused. We would like to implement a secure checkout form for products
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that users are buying. Additionally, we would like the ability for users to create accounts with
securely encrypted passwords that are stored in the directory. We would additionally like to
implement quality-of-life features such as a way to create wishlists, or “Save for Later” feature
We would like to note that our aim is to implement all the features that make our project
unique. However, due to the scarcity of time and complexity of the project we will not be able to
implement all the features as described in the report and proposal. We will include buttons and
links in those areas to show where further development is needed. Some of these items might be
the kids lists, and the algorithm to compare prices between sellers and show the consumers only
the lowest price. There is some complexity in the set up of tables that is delaying our progress,
Part 2
Platform
For the project we used ReactJS and Sublime text to create the frontend. ReactJS is a
more organized than regular javascript and it perhaps is the most popular language at the time
being. For the backend we used Spring Boot and Eclipse using Java. Eclipse is easy to work with
perhaps because we have previous experience using it. Spring Boot works well to import and
export data in and out of the MySql database. We used this platform because we have enough
As for the backend, we used MySql Workbench, because it is user friendly and works
well with Spring Boot. We used our local network for site deployment. We are still in the beta
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phase and we acknowledge that there are more features that we need to complete in terms of
security before we can deploy online. Local network serves our purpose for now, in terms of
usability testing. Our plan is to deploy the site to Heroku within the next few days. Heroku is a
free deployment platform that suits our bata phase’s purpose. However this would have to wait
Major Functions
Kidz101 is an eCommerce platform for sellers to sell their products and for consumers to
buy the sellers’ products. Some of the major functions of the site is the ability of the sellers to
upload their items and receive notice when their items get sold. The sellers will each have their
unique id numbers and will be able to upload and edit their merchandise as they see fit. The
sellers have an orders section which shows all their sold items. The consumers on the other hand
need to be able to add products into their shopping carts, and edit their carts as needed. They
should be able to log out and save their cart items. The consumers can finalize their orders by
including their payment and address information. Once the order is processed, the consumer can
For the usability testing we met with individuals from different age groups, backgrounds,
interests, and technical abilities. We had subjects that were from different age groups starting
from 7 until 50 years of age. Some were working parents, others were stay at home mothers,
some were entrepreneurs, as well as college and elementary students. Some from of focus group
had good technical skills while others were more used to mobile shopping instead. Our team
listed the functions that should be completed by the focus group and had them complete the
The questions served as a step by step guide into to functionalities of the site. We also
considered the number of questions the users needed to ask as well as their facial expressions as
part of our evaluation methods. We will evaluate these tests, based on the common occurrence of
complaints. We will also consider the number of questions to figure out the ease of use of the
site. As for facial expressions, this will help us indicate their honest overall experience; which
we will use to further modify the look of the site. See Appendix A.
Our testing took place in a one-on-one environment. We gave the tester a brief overview
of the site beforehand. The test needed the tester, a quiet enviroment, a computer, and the
questionnaire with the step by step guide. To get the best result from our test we needed a big
enough sample size. We were able to get seven testers, which is enough to give us a variety of
comments and experiences. For our evaluation, we were looking for commonalities in user
Our evaluation from the testing sessions showed us what we need to make usability
clearer. We also noted the users’ facial expressions and the number of questions asked while
using the site. This led us to believe that the buttons and page titles were not enough to explain to
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the user what they were expected to do on some pages. From the information that we gathered
during the focus group we will try to fix the issues that were most common. For instance, the
button visibility was a common issue as well as the lack of product selections. See Appendix B.
Part 3
When describing the milestones in our proposals, we were aware that they will likely
change due to the nature of the project. Once the work is done it is easy to underestimate the
effort it took to create the project but we faced intense challenges in our pursuit. For one, our
team was not experienced in neither React nor Springboot. We were briefly introduced to the
concepts but we had never made anything from scratch using these tools. This meant that we had
to learn and had to abandon our initial milestone plan and find a new way to save time and get
In the end, almost our goals were achieved and the product exceeded our expectations.
There is one thing that we missed that was important to our mission and that is the product
display algorithm. We had intended to only show products with the lowest prices to the
consumers in order to discourage price gouging. However, we got feedback from a potential
investor that an absolute algorithm would be discouraging to the sellers, and that a more
comprehensive algorithm needs to be developed. As for our expenses, we did not have any costs
other than our time and energy. Everything we needed was already freely available online. We
just needed the skills and we got them from watching various Youtube tutorials and meeting with
Final Implementation
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The project is a site for selling and buying merchandise related to kids with a niche of
encouraging lower price postings. The user on the seller side would create or log in to an existing
account; they would see all products on the market and filter through them. They would also be
able to see their own products and add, edit or delete their items. The seller could also check
what products they have sold. In future implementations, they would be able to receive shipping
On the other hand, the user on the consumer side would create an account or login into an
existing one. They would go through the list of items and filter through to their product of
choice. They can add the items to the cart and edit the shopping cart by changing the quantity or
removing an item altogether. Once the shopping cart is reviewed the consumer would confirm
their order; enter the billing and shipping information and submit their order. They could also
review their orders in their orders tab, which includes all the items as well as the order total.
The site was written using ReactJs and Springboot with the use of the MySql database. In
React, we used components to navigate through the different functions of the site. The routing
took place in the app.js component. In Springboot, we used a model, controller, and interface for
each table in the MySql database. We initially worked on the seller portal which took around four
weeks to complete. Since we learned as we developed, this initial section took the longest to
resolve due to encountered problems that were beyond our scope. However, once we finished
the seller side of the site, we were able to clone it onto the consumer side and make various
changes as needed. We also had to figure out how to save cart items and how to empty the carts
whilst keeping the items for displaying orders saved. We had to create an in-between table for
processed cart items that would save all cart items and then use the order id to get real orders.
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After our focus group testing, we realized that the site was not easy to use. We had to
include a page title for each page and increase the size of the buttons for better visibility. We also
felt that the site was plain and needed more personality. Since Christmas and the winter holiday
season are coming up, we decided to make the theme of the site festive with white Christmas
lights in the background and an image of presents on the top of the screen.
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Discussion
There are some problems that appeared during the design and implementation phases. As
with all things new, there are somethings that we did not consider in our design phase due to lack
of experience. One major set back for us is the inclusion of the buttons in the header menu.
However, since we developed the functionalities of the buttons and the data being transferred
through these button actions ahead the user testing; it was impossible for us to put those buttons
in the header, because they would change all the datasharing within the components. That is
because the header is a component in itself which is pushed into each page component. This is
something that would take a week or more to fix, if all goes well which is rare.
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Consumer Homepage
Our targets were to create a seller and consumer side each with it’s own login pages;
however we had a very simplistic view of what it would take to create these pages and their
functionalities. We believe that we were able to achieve far more that we thought possible. There
were times were we were not sure if we could deliver the product altogether; however, through
persistence and guidance from Professor Wisneski we were able to get through it. We feel very
competent about our abilities in these languages right now and that is all due to the lessons
learned from the hardships that we initially faced. Nonetheless, there is still a lot more to learn.
For instance we lack the experience needed to properly secure our site. We need to research how
banks and big corporations handle security and learn from them.
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As far as the design and our vision for the site, we aim to use more stylistic objects in our
future design. Due to the scarcity of time, we only focussed on using regular CSS design handles
and Boodstrap. However, we would like to create drop down menus, drop down items, and make
the pages feel more organized and legible. We would also like to differentiate the consumer and
seller portals by using different colors and styles. At the moment they look very similar expect
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REFERENCES
Amazon. (2020, September 18). Who we are: Amazon. Amazon. Retrieved November 15, 2022,
from https://www.aboutamazon.com/about-us
Dconan4, Fbelhse1, & Jrhea5. (2020, November 3). Is tracking user data online unethical?
https://www.projectdigital.org/is-tracking-user-data-online-unethical/
Goldman, K. M. (2021, November 1). Toy Association warns holiday shoppers about counterfeit
toys sold online. The Toy Association. Retrieved October 5, 2022, from
https://www.toyassociation.org/PressRoom2/News/2021-news/toy-association-warns-holi
day-shoppers-about-counterfeit-toys-online.aspx
F-Secure. (2020, July 3). Why do hackers want your personal information? F-Secure. Retrieved
https://www.f-secure.com/us-en/home/articles/why-do-hackers-want-your-personal-infor
mation
Holmes Intern, O. (2022, August 10). A crisis of convenience: Why your amazon box is going
straight into the trash. Frontier Group. Retrieved October 11, 2022, from
https://frontiergroup.org/articles/crisis-convenience-why-your-amazon-box-going-straight
-trash/
Kavanaugh, K. (2021, November 15). 25 Investigates: Tips to navigate soaring cost of toys this
https://www.boston25news.com/news/local/25-investigates-tips-navigate-soaring-cost-to
ys-this-holiday-season/TILG5OMFTZGQHAQH2F45OZ6G3M/
Lieber, C. (2018, December 5). Big Tech has your kid's data - and you probably gave it to them.
https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/12/5/18128066/children-data-surveillance-amazon-
facebook-google-apple
Ondeck, C. E., Ingrassia, J. R., & McGowan, S. D. (2021, August 19). E-commerce platform
facing price gouging scrutiny. Minding Your Business. Retrieved October 5, 2022, from
https://www.mindingyourbusinesslitigation.com/2021/08/e-commerce-platform-facing-pr
ice-gouging-scrutiny/
Payment card industry data security standard (PCI-DSS). Security Compass. (2022, September
https://www.securitycompass.com/sdelements/content-library/payment-card-industry-dat
a-security-standard/
Tech Target Contributor, T. T. (2020, May 27). What is PCI DSS (payment card industry data
2022, from
https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/definition/PCI-DSS-Payment-Card-Industry-
Data-Security-Standard
United Nations. (2021, March 2). Convention on the rights of the child - office of the united
https://docstore.ohchr.org/SelfServices/FilesHandler.ashx?enc=6QkG1d%2FPPRiCAqhK
b7yhsqIkirKQZLK2M58RF%2F5F0vEnG3QGKUxFivhToQfjGxYjV05tUAIgpOwHQJs
FPdJXCvIPDmeQ6GNHkvDSHn%2B9q%2FAU8slpDcDhK6MpaRN6iP0I
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APPENDIX A
APPENDIX B
Zackaria
Zia
Mussarat
Sara
Summary of Feedback
In evaluation of Aisha’s focus group testing, the overall feeling of the site was
mixed with some confusion. The buttons most complained were too small and they
often needed assistance manuevering through the site. This might also be due to a lack
of technical expertise, but it was something that we had to take notice off. The little boy
zack found it very fun to use. He want to sell things online and enjoyed uploading his
items and then fake buying them on the consumer side. Sara and Mussarat, took the
site more seriously and wanted to conduct searches on items that they could not find.
They connected more with the consumer side of the site. Zia had not issues using the
site, but had some comments about the buttons being out of place.
We did encounter some issues overall with the button being misplaced and some
text fields that changed even though they were supposed to be fixed. The functionality
of the site is working properly. There is an issue with empty input when filtering that we
hope to resolve before the festival. The rest of the esthetical issues should also be
resolved before the festival. Since the project is in the beta phase, we are almost done
with it before we deploy it online. Some of the things we want to resolve is creating a
tighter security around the login and database aspects of the backend. We will not have
enough time resolve this issue before the festival but we will resolve it by next week.
Overall, all of Michelle’s testers thought that the format and functionality of the
website were intuitive after a few minutes of navigating through the websites for a few
minutes. Additionally, they thought that the color scheme and visual theme was
appealing to look at, with some describing it giving them a “warm” and “cheery” vibe. A
piece of recurring feedback that I received from my testers was that the buttons for
navigation between pages were too small, and not initially noticeable. I received this
feedback from Nik, who offered his art expertise and suggested that we make the
27
buttons bigger and more noticeable, and from Thuy, who fits our target parent
demographic, and has near-sight issues.
APPENDIX C
Responsibilities: Set up basic structure of the pages front end and back end. Had to set up one
Responsibilities: Set up basic structure of visible components. Making changes to improve user
experience and testing the functionalities of the cloned front ends and back ends. Was also
responsible for all things media and visuals including working on logo samples, prototypes, and
video presentation..
29
APPENDIX D
VIDEO PRESENTATION
https://youtu.be/xIpjc3d-8hw
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APPENDIX E
ARTIFACTS