E-Commerce Platform
How we built a full-featured online store with Stripe payments, inventory management, and real-time order tracking — live and scaling from day one.
01 — The Problem
An established brand with no online presence
A retail business with strong offline sales needed to expand online — but their previous attempt at an e-commerce site was slow, unreliable, and lacked the inventory controls their team needed to operate confidently.
They were losing potential customers to competitors every day, had no way to run promotions systematically, and their payment process was patched together with third-party tools that didn't communicate with each other.
"We had the products, we had the customers — we just couldn't sell to them at scale online. Every order felt like it could break something."
— Business Owner, Pre-Launch
- No reliable product variant management (size, colour, SKU) leading to overselling
- Payment processing was fragmented — no unified gateway, no automated receipts
- Zero discount / coupon engine for marketing campaigns
- Admin had no real-time view of inventory, orders, or revenue
- Page load times over 8 seconds on mobile — critical for conversion
02 — The Solution
A performant store built to scale from launch
We rebuilt the entire commerce stack from the ground up using Django and PostgreSQL — prioritising speed, reliability, and admin control over every aspect of the buying journey.
- Stripe Payment Gateway
Secure card payments with webhook-based order confirmation, automated receipts, and refund handling — fully integrated into the order lifecycle. - Product Catalog & Variant Engine
Full product management with variant support (size/colour/SKU), stock tracking per variant, low-stock alerts, and bulk import via CSV. - Order Tracking System
Real-time order status updates from placement through dispatch to delivery — visible to both admin and customer with automated email notifications at each stage. - Discount & Coupon Engine
Percentage and fixed-value coupons with usage limits, expiry dates, and per-customer redemption caps — ready for any marketing campaign. - Admin Dashboard
Unified view of revenue, inventory levels, pending orders, and top-performing products — with CSV export for accounting.
03 — Tech Stack
Fast, reliable, Python-native
Django's ORM and built-in admin gave us a strong foundation. Redis handled session caching and cart state. PostgreSQL ensured transactional integrity on every order.
04 — Timeline
8 weeks, zero compromises
Week 1–2
Discovery & Data Migration
Mapped existing product catalog, designed DB schema, and migrated product data from the old system.
Week 3–5
Core Commerce Build
Product catalog, variant engine, cart, checkout flow, and Stripe integration with webhook handling.
Week 6–7
Admin Dashboard & Discounts
Full admin panel, inventory management, coupon engine, order status management, and email notifications.
Week 8
Performance, QA & Launch
Redis caching, image optimisation, load testing, UAT, and phased go-live.
05 — Results
500+ orders in 30 days
The platform launched on schedule and immediately handled real traffic without issues. The client ran their first promotional campaign in week two and saw a 3× spike in orders — the system handled it without a single error.