The problem
A small retail operation needed to sell online without taking on platform fees or a monthly SaaS bill that scales faster than the orders do.
The approach
Build the storefront directly on hosting the business already controls, and keep the running cost close to fixed. Stripe handles the card data, so the application never touches it.
The architecture
- PHP storefront with catalogue, product variants and live stock checks
- Stripe Checkout sessions created server-side; no card data reaches the application
- Order processing, success and cancel flows with downloadable invoices
- Admin area for products, stock and orders
- First-party analytics tracking rather than a third-party script on every page
- Maintenance mode for deploys
Result
Built to run on hosting the owner already pays for, with payment handling delegated to Stripe so card data stays out of the application entirely.
Your next system starts here.
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