Quicksell: live auctions, with the money and the couriers done properly
An auction marketplace in South Africa where bids land live, every payment is split into item, fee, VAT and shipping, and the parcel gets booked with a real courier.
- Type
- Web platform
- Built with
- React, Node, Socket.io
- Timeline
- Aug 2025 to now
- Status
- Live, still shipping
An auction site is easy. The money and the parcels are not.
The client wanted an online auction house for South Africa: live bidding, card payments, local couriers, and seller payouts that come out right after VAT and fees.
When we picked it up, the admin dashboard was throwing errors, bidding was not reliably real-time, email was not sending and the payment flow was half done. It needed finishing, then it needed to keep growing while people were already using it.
A marketplace that handles real money
Live bidding
Each auction is its own Socket.io room. A bid is pushed to everyone watching the moment it lands, and joining is checked against the buyer's region.
Four payment gateways
An internal wallet, AddPay, Traderoot and Stripe. Each branch can pick its own gateway and run on its own merchant account.
Five couriers, booked from the order
SA Post Office, ShipLogic, CourierIT, Pargo counter pickup and DHL Express, with rates, booking and status tracking wired in.
Pricing that adds up
One place splits every charge into item, platform fee, VAT and shipping, with rates set per region. Seller payouts come out of the same numbers.
Affiliates and trust
Referral codes with rate limits, KYC, two-factor login, seller applications, withdrawals and reviews.
Store operations
Multi-branch stores with point of sale, stocktake, returns and cash-up, plus a scheduler that opens and closes auctions on time.
Where it stands
528
commits over 14 months, Aug 2025 to Oct 2026
90
pull requests reviewed and merged
5
courier integrations, from SA Post Office to DHL Express
4
payment gateways, chosen per branch
A full QA pass in September 2026 found an admin dashboard taking about 40 seconds and store screens broken by missing database indexes. All of it was fixed, and the platform kept shipping new payment and courier work after that.
What it runs on
Front end
- React 18
- TypeScript
- Vite
- Tailwind
- Zustand
- React Query
- Socket.io client
Back end
- Node.js
- Express
- Socket.io 4
- Firebase Admin
- Google Secret Manager
- Resend
Data & hosting
- Firestore
- Railway
Need a marketplace that handles real money?
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