Vitrine — Connecting Local Businesses to Their Communities

https://satisfied-smooth-onboard-path.base44.app/

Vitrine is a free platform created to help market vendors, small business owners, local producers, artisans, food sellers, and independent professionals digitalize their businesses in a simple and accessible way.

Many of these merchants still depend only on in-person sales, paper notes, and WhatsApp promotion. Vitrine brings everything they need into one application: a digital storefront, marketplace, inventory control, cash flow management, orders, customer organization, and business performance metrics.

How It Works

Each merchant can create a free profile and build their own online store by publishing product photos, prices, descriptions, and availability.

Customers can access the marketplace, discover nearby merchants, browse local products, follow their favorite stores, like and comment on products, place orders, and contact sellers directly.

The main purpose is to connect local sellers with customers in their area, strengthening neighborhood businesses and increasing visibility for small entrepreneurs.

Features for Merchants

Merchants have access to a complete management dashboard where they can:

Add, edit, and remove products;

Create their own digital storefront;

Receive and manage orders;

Monitor product inventory;

Register income and expenses;

Track business cash flow;

Organize customer information;

Reply to comments and messages;

Monitor visits, sales, and engagement;

Receive notifications about new orders, visits, and comments;

Track business performance in real time.

Local Marketplace

Vitrine also works as a regional marketplace.

Instead of focusing only on large companies, the platform gives visibility to small merchants from each city, neighborhood, or local community.

Customers can discover fruits, vegetables, baked goods, sweets, handmade products, homemade food, clothing, services, and many other products sold by people in their own region.

Each merchant maintains their own identity, store page, products, and direct relationship with customers.

Dashboard and Business Metrics

The dashboard presents business information in a simple and visual format, including:

Store visits;

Number of orders;

Revenue;

Most viewed products;

Best-selling products;

New customers;

Comments and interactions;

Activity history;

Inventory and cash flow movements.

These metrics help merchants better understand customer behavior and make more informed business decisions.

Recommendation Algorithm

Vitrine uses a deterministic algorithm to analyze interactions within the platform.

The system considers information such as product views, likes, comments, location, customer interests, and order history to organize the marketplace feed and display more relevant products to each customer.

The algorithm also helps identify:

Products generating the most interest;

Products losing visibility;

Most engaged customers;

Peak access times;

Possible loss of customer interest;

Sales trends;

Inventory restocking needs.

Most of these analyses work without depending on generative artificial intelligence, reducing operating costs and making the system more predictable and accessible for small businesses.

Automations

The platform automates several daily business tasks, including:

Low-stock alerts;

New-order notifications;

New-comment alerts;

Activity logging;

Automatic dashboard metric updates;

Customer organization;

Automatic product recommendations;

Sales and inventory history;

Suggestions based on customer behavior.

Project Objective

The objective of Vitrine is to democratize access to technology for merchants who may not have the resources to hire developers or pay for an online store, inventory system, CRM, or analytics platform.

Instead of forcing small merchants to use several different tools, Vitrine provides everything in one platform with a simple, mobile-friendly interface.

Merchants can promote their products, attract new customers, manage their businesses, and build an online presence without needing technical knowledge.

Social and Economic Impact

Vitrine strengthens local economies by connecting consumers with small businesses in their own communities.

The platform helps independent sellers increase their income, improve business organization, and participate in the digital economy.

More than an online store, Vitrine is a support network for local commerce, providing technology, visibility, and management tools to the people who need them most.

Vitrine: connecting small businesses with their local communities.

I did not only build the MVP—I also connected it with a real market vendor in São Paulo, validating the platform in a real-world environment.

Vitrine creates a digital network where market vendors and small business owners who previously had little or no access to business management technology can manage their stores directly from their mobile phones. Through a simple and accessible interface, they can create an online storefront, publish products, control inventory and cash flow, receive orders, and connect with local customers.

The goal is not simply to create another marketplace, but to give underserved local merchants direct access to digital tools that can help them organize, promote, and grow their businesses.