Connect Sphere: A Hyper-Local Real-Time Digital Marketplace Architecture for University Communities

Abstract

Traditional campus commerce and stu- dent resource sharing heavily rely on fragmented public forums, physical bulletin boards, or generic e-commerce platforms. However, these methods often lack an inherent layer of trust, require sharing per- sonal contact information publicly, and are not opti- mized for the specific needs of a university ecosystem. Several digital marketplace solutions exist; despite these developments, many suffer from limitations such as unverified user bases, vulnerability to scams, absence of real-time communication, and poor hyper- local focus. This research proposes "Connect Sphere," a secure, hyper-local peer-to-peer digital marketplace system designed exclusively for university communi- ties to facilitate the buying, selling, and trading of academic resources and personal items. The system integrates a dynamic user interface built with React.js and Redux, a decoupled backend architecture utilizing Node.js and Express.js for RESTful API services, and a MongoDB cloud database for efficient data storage. Product media files are seamlessly processed and securely hosted using Cloudinary. Real-time, persistent private communication between buyers and sellers is established through WebSockets using Socket.io. Additionally, the system incorporates robust security and interactive features, including JSON Web Token (JWT) based authentication, multi-image listing gal- leries, comprehensive search with category filtering, and integrated user profile management for reputation tracking. Experimental evaluation demonstrates im- proved user engagement, highly secure transactional communication, and significantly faster localized re- source discovery compared to traditional public mar- ketplace platforms.