Isaac-faithful/soko-marketplace

A platform that connects African merchants to African buyers in the diaspora # Soko Soko is a marketplace prototype connecting merchants in Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya with African diaspora buyers. Merchants list products in their local currency. Buyers convert their money before payment and send the order amount in the seller's local currency. Soko does not perform the currency conversion. ## Run locally The backend uses Node's built-in HTTP, cryptography, and SQLite modules, so no dependency installation is required. Node 22.5 or newer is required. From this folder, run: ```bash npm start ``` Then open `localhost`. Do not use the old Python static-file command: it cannot run authentication, database, product, or order APIs. ### Demo accounts - Merchant: `merchant@soko.demo` - Buyer: `buyer@soko.demo` - Administrator: `admin@soko.demo` - Buyer and merchant password: `SokoDemo123!` - Administrator password: `SokoAdmin123!` You can also create a new buyer or merchant account from `auth.html`. ## What is included - Responsive buyer marketplace - Category filtering - NGN, GHS, and KES merchant pricing - Single-country baskets so one order uses one local currency - Shopping bag with estimated totals - Delivery-address checkout - Country-specific demo payment instructions and unique payment references - Simulated payment confirmation and order-tracking timeline - Merchant early-access form - Dedicated responsive merchant dashboard - Store profile and operating-country settings - Product creation, publishing, stock, and visibility controls - Incoming orders with local-payment and fulfilment statuses - Dashboard metrics and demo store analytics - Buyer and merchant account registration - Password hashing with per-user salts - Server-side sessions using HttpOnly, SameSite cookies - SQLite persistence for users, merchants, products, orders, and order items - Role and ownership checks on merchant APIs - Server-controlled product prices and inventory updates during ordering - Soko Trust Console with administrator-only access - Merc …