Project Description
Ambivalence is a production e-commerce platform built end-to-end for an independent clothing brand. It pairs a fast, mobile-first storefront with a custom admin dashboard that lets the owner manage catalog, stock, and orders without depending on a SaaS like Shopify — keeping margin per sale meaningfully higher.
Business Impact
- Sub-1.5s Largest Contentful Paint on product pages via Next.js SSR/ISR + image optimization — directly tied to a measurable drop in bounce rate.
- Zero overselling during product drops: Real-time inventory sync between cart, checkout, and admin reduced refund/apology emails after every limited-edition launch.
- Lower per-order operating cost: Self-hosted stack on Vercel + Supabase removed the percentage-of-revenue fees of a SaaS storefront.
- Checkout abandonment reduced by collapsing the funnel to a single, validation-driven page with persistent cart state.
Technologies Used
- Frontend & Backend: Next.js 14 (App Router, TypeScript)
- Database & ORM: PostgreSQL via Prisma
- Data & Storage: Supabase
- Deployment: Vercel (edge + ISR)
- Security: JWT-based authentication & authorization for admin routes
Key Features
- Custom Admin Dashboard: Product, inventory, and order management without a third-party CMS.
- Real-Time Inventory Sync: Stock decrements at order-placement, surfaced instantly on the storefront to prevent overselling.
- High Availability & Scalability: Vercel deployment with ISR; ~99.9% uptime, scales transparently during launch traffic spikes.
- Authentication & Authorization: JWT-based admin access with route-level guards.
Conclusions
Ambivalence proved that a small brand can run a fully custom e-commerce stack — without SaaS fees — and still hit performance and reliability targets that compete with off-the-shelf platforms. The architecture leaves room to grow: i18n, multi-currency, and analytics can slot in without rewriting the storefront.