Full-stack DTC skincare storefront — search, shipping, tax, reviews, and self-serve admin
A ground-up e-commerce platform for a skincare brand — multi-image product galleries, full-text search with skin-type and category filtering, real-time shipping rates via Shippo, Stripe Tax at checkout, guest and authenticated purchase flows, inventory reservation, a verified-review system, wishlist, recently-viewed tracking, newsletter with discount code, and a comprehensive self-serve admin panel.
The problem
An older single-image storefront with login-required checkout was losing mobile conversions and gave the operator no tools to manage products, reviews, or orders without engineering involvement. The brand needed a modern, owned storefront — no Shopify dependency, no per-transaction platform fees.
Approach
- React + Vite SPA with Tailwind — polished motion, 44px tap targets, full-text product search (⌘K shortcut), and category, skin-type, and sort filters across the catalog
- FastAPI + SQLAlchemy backend with idempotent startup migrations, Stripe Checkout, and Stripe Tax API — real-time tax estimate shown in the cart before the Stripe redirect
- Shippo integration for live shipping rate calculation — multiple carriers and service levels surfaced at checkout before payment
- Inventory reservation system — 30-minute hold placed on stock when a session opens, auto-released on timeout, cancellation, or payment failure
- Multi-image gallery per product with admin-controlled sort order; wishlist and recently-viewed tracking via localStorage; related product suggestions on each product page
- Review system with rate-limiting per IP, spam detection, verified-purchase badges for authenticated buyers, review summary statistics, and an admin moderation queue with approve/reject workflow
- Newsletter subscription with a welcome discount code delivered via transactional email; Loi 25 / PIPEDA-compliant personal data export and one-click account deletion
- Self-serve admin panel covering product and category management, multi-image gallery ordering, order management with status updates, review moderation, newsletter subscriber list with CSV export, and contact message inbox
- SEO-optimised with dynamic sitemap.xml, JSON-LD product schema markup, canonical URLs, and social sharing support
Outcome
- Lighthouse mobile 95+ across product pages — no Shopify overhead, no third-party script bloat
- Guest checkout with real-time tax and live carrier shipping rates shown before the Stripe redirect
- Self-serve admin handles products, orders, reviews, gallery, and subscribers without engineering involvement
- Full data ownership — all customer and order data stays on private infrastructure with zero platform fees
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