Objective
To build a full-featured, performant e-commerce marketplace for thrifted clothing, focusing on a seamless user experience for both customers and administrators.
Technical Choices
- Next.js was chosen for its server-side rendering capabilities, ensuring fast page loads and excellent SEO.
- MongoDB provided a flexible, scalable database solution for handling diverse product data.
- Cloudinary was integrated for robust, cloud-based image management and optimization.
- Tailwind CSS allowed for rapid development of a custom, responsive user interface.
Challenges & Solutions
The primary challenge was designing a secure and efficient admin dashboard that allowed for easy product creation, inventory updates, and order management. Implementing secure image upload functionality directly to a cloud provider without bogging down the server was another key hurdle.
Lessons Learned
This project provided deep insights into full-stack development with Next.js, particularly in handling server actions for form submissions and data mutations. I learned best practices for state management in a server-rendered application and gained valuable experience in integrating third-party APIs like Cloudinary for critical application features.