Discount & affiliate ecommerce suite
Discount Retail Commerce
Buy4Low full-stack commerce—Express/MongoDB API, React storefront, and admin dashboard with JWT roles, affiliate listings, and PHP-proxied image uploads.
Background & Context
Buy4Low is a three-package ecommerce system: Express/MongoDB API (backend/), Vite/React storefront (frontend/), and Vite/React admin dashboard (dashboard/). Image uploads are accepted by the API (Multer) and forwarded to a PHP script (upload.php) via PHP_UPLOAD_URL. Cloudinary appears as a dependency/config only—controllers use the PHP path. There is no .git directory in this tree and no Dockerized local stack.
The retailer needed catalog and order tooling for discount-oriented merchandising plus affiliate products with external buy links. Customers browse filtered catalogs, keep a Zustand-persisted cart, check out while authenticated (shipping address + payment method string), and view orders. Admins manage products, categories, brands, inventory stock, and order/payment status. Payment method is recorded without a card gateway SDK.
Security basics are present: Helmet, CORS for frontend/dashboard origins, and rate limiting on /api/ (100 req / 15 min / IP). Public product queries force isActive: true. Newsletter UI is toast-only with no backend.
The Challenge
Manual product and order handling could not keep up with promotional catalog updates, affiliate redirects, and multi-role staff access for a discount-oriented store. Without a coherent discount & affiliate ecommerce suite foundation, Discount Retail Commerce stakeholders faced fragmented tools, slow handoffs, and limited visibility—classic failure modes Tekvers designs against.
The Solution
Discount Retail Commerce: Buy4Low full-stack commerce—Express/MongoDB API, React storefront, and admin dashboard with JWT roles, affiliate listings, and PHP-proxied image uploads. Faster promotional and affiliate catalog updates by staff. Tekvers delivered a maintainable discount & affiliate ecommerce suite system for Discount Retail Commerce using Express, TypeScript, MongoDB, Mongoose, with phased rollout, operator workflows, and documentation suited to long-term ownership.
Our Approach
Secure operations layer
JWT Bearer auth (`user` / `admin`) with bcrypt passwords, admin seed script, Helmet/CORS/rate limits, and validated inputs on catalog and order mutations.
Merchandising & affiliate workflows
Public product list supports pagination, search, price filters, sort, category, and `isAffiliate`. Affiliate SKUs skip add-to-cart and open `affiliateLink` (optional Amazon associate tag). Badges derive from sale/compare price, newness, rating, low stock, and affiliate flag.
Staff dashboard + upload pipeline
Admin CRUD for products/categories/brands, order status updates, inventory UI, and authenticated `POST /api/upload` (+ multiple) forwarding to PHP—so merchandising does not require developer intervention for routine catalog changes.
What We Delivered
- Express 4 TypeScript API on Mongoose/MongoDB (auth, products, categories, brands, orders, uploads, health)
- Customer Vite/React storefront with cart persist, checkout, and my-orders
- Admin Vite/React dashboard with role gate and catalog/order/inventory screens
- Affiliate product support with external buy CTAs
- Product badge logic (sale %, NEW, BESTSELLER, LIMITED, AFFILIATE)
- JWT auth with bcrypt hashing and admin seed script
- Multer → PHP upload pipeline (`upload.php`)
- Rate limiting, Helmet, and CORS hardening on the API
Outcomes & Impact
- Faster promotional and affiliate catalog updates by staff
- Controlled admin access to order and inventory mutations
- Client cart + authenticated checkout with stock decrement
- Honest commerce base without inventing payment capture or multi-vendor marketplace features
Buy4Low moved from ad-hoc updates to a structured discount/affiliate commerce stack—safer for staff, clearer for shoppers, ready for the next promotional cycle—while Tekvers documented PHP uploads and payment-method-only checkout instead of over-claiming gateways.
Technology Stack
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