Allora Store
Production-grade e‑commerce storefront (Next.js + Prisma/Postgres) with resilient checkout, variant & inventory management, and comprehensive test coverage.
Case Study
A deep dive into the project development process
The Problem
Built a modern e-commerce storefront requiring fast product discovery, reliable cart & checkout flows, and scalable inventory management. Pain points included inconsistent product variant handling, fragile checkout under concurrent orders, and limited automated test coverage which created release risk and poor developer feedback loops. Goal: deliver a production-grade store with resilient checkout, clear inventory semantics, and end-to-end test coverage while keeping developer experience smooth.
The Solution
Architecture: TypeScript-first Next.js app (App Router) with server/client component separation and Prisma-powered data access to enforce schema and transactional integrity. Resiliency: centralized inventory and variant logic in backend services and API routes to avoid race conditions and ensure consistent stock updates during checkout. Quality: comprehensive Playwright E2E and Jest unit/integration test suites covering auth, cart, checkout, products, and wishlist flows. Developer DX: seed scripts, local dev helpers, and test harnesses for reliable local reproduction.
Key Features
- Robust checkout with server-side verification and idempotent order creation
- Variant & inventory management with stock validation during add-to-cart and checkout
- Auth & profiles (email/password, password reset, verification)
- Search & discovery with fast product listing and SSR where appropriate
- Comprehensive E2E + unit tests
- Observability and maintenance scripts for inventory reconciliation and seeding
Challenges Faced
Concurrency: preventing oversells and race conditions required careful transactional logic and retry strategies. SSR vs client needs: balancing server-rendered pages for SEO with rich client interactivity required strategic server component usage. Variant complexity: modeling variants and options (size/color) to keep pricing, availability, and images consistent. Testing realism: designing reliable, fast E2E tests that exercise real-world flows (payments, webhooks, edge cases).
What I Learned
Defensive APIs are essential for financial flows; invest in repeatable seeded test data and teardown for deterministic tests; leverage Next.js server components and caching to reduce client bundles; small operational tooling (seed, inventory checks) reduces on-call load.
Results & Impact
Delivered a maintainable production-ready storefront with strong test coverage, reduced release regressions, improved developer velocity via seeded fixtures and test harnesses, and increased business confidence from reliable checkout and inventory flows.
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