Sherlyn Olalo
A rental marketplace built with Django and MySQL. Customers browse and book vehicles with payment; car owners manage listings and view bookings; admins oversee the entire platform.
Car rental marketplaces typically force owners through rigid platforms or lock customers into limited inventory. There was no simple way for individuals to list spare vehicles or for customers to find peer-to-peer rentals with transparent pricing and reviews. Existing solutions were either overcomplicated or lacked the trust mechanisms (reviews, owner profiles) needed for peer-to-peer transactions.
Car Rental is a two-sided marketplace that empowers both owners and renters. Customers browse available cars with filters, book by date range, pay securely, and leave reviews. Car owners manage their own listings, set discount codes, and track incoming bookings. Admins have full visibility and control via Django's admin panel.
The tech stack: Django's ORM and built-in auth handled rapid development. MySQL provided reliable persistence. Server-rendered templates + Bootstrap kept the frontend simple and performant without JavaScript complexity.
Role-based architecture — A single `User` model extended with a `Profile.role` keeps the codebase DRY while supporting distinct customer and owner experiences
Trust through reviews — Post-rental reviews build credibility for both sides, crucial for a peer-to-peer platform
Flexible discount system — Owners can create codes, enabling dynamic pricing without backend changes
Building a two-sided marketplace taught me that different user flows need different mental models — what's intuitive for an owner dashboard can confuse a customer. I learned to think about the seams where money changes hands; payment integration is a critical trust point. If I revisited it, I'd add dynamic pricing algorithms for owners, implement real payment processing (Stripe/PayPal), and add notifications to keep both parties in sync during the booking lifecycle.