Skaters

The skateboarding community needed a dedicated e-commerce platform where multiple vendors could sell gear, share reviews, and build a community. Existing solutions like Shopify were too generic and expensive for small skate shops.

The challenge was designing a backend that could handle multi-vendor operations — separate inventories, split payments, vendor dashboards — while keeping the platform fast and the developer experience clean.

I designed the backend as a modular system with clear separation between store management, shop operations, user accounts, and notifications. Each module has its own service layer, making the codebase easy to extend and test.

WebSocket integration enables real-time order status updates — customers see their order progress live, and vendors get instant notifications for new orders. This creates a responsive, modern shopping experience without constant page refreshes.

The final platform supports multi-vendor registration, product catalog management, order processing with split payments, and a review system. The notification engine keeps all parties informed in real-time.

Deployed on Vercel with Next.js for the storefront, the platform achieves excellent performance with edge caching and serverless API routes. The open-source nature encourages community contributions and transparency.

The project demonstrates scalable backend architecture for marketplace applications. The modular design pattern has been adopted by other open-source projects as a reference implementation.

Real-time notifications reduced customer support inquiries about order status significantly, proving that proactive communication is more effective than reactive support.