As a Full-Stack how will you build an e-commerce web app and the mobile version | Hacker News Reader

As a Full-Stack how will you build an e-commerce web app and the mobile version

Hi @all. Just be pinged by a partner who wants me to build a simple e-commerce web app and his mobile version to sell clothes on.

As a Full-Stack how will you handle such app technically? Will you go with a CMS and call API on the android version? Or you will take all in hand and build something really lightweight from scratch with for example NodeJs and Express(loopback.io) with material design? Thanks.

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From a business perspective, my first approach would be to build on an existing ecommerce platform...Amazon, ebay, Yahoo etc. That avoids a host of security and payment and content issues...and ongoing support issues. The app would be a front end for the shopfront and be the place where features add value (rather than risk).

One particular risk using an existing platform reduces is the risk associated with maintaining the ecommerce site. A developer who likes to build stuff in node may not have long term interest in tasks like regulatory compliance and such...things like calculating VAT depending on the buyer's location and automating payments to the government concerned.

Good luck.

Yes, your arguments are also right @brudgers. Thanks for it. But It looks like build on an established e-commerce platform can be a pain when we need to add functionalities or customize existing one. What is your points about, please?

cms. shops can became complex very fast

Thanks for your point, yes I agree. Then you recommend to go from scratch with some tables and the stack you love?

It really depends on the budget/time that you have. Are you more comfortable with Android or Full-Stack Web? If web, I would say of course build out a web solution and make it mobile friendly (MEAN: MySQL, Loopback, Ng2, Node). If you are comfortable with Android, use Loopback to build a web-app, and mainly focus on building out the APIs that you need, while knocking out the mobile side. It gives you an awesome interface for testing your APIs. Overtime, you can build out the client side of the web-app (I use Ng2) to handle the data management that you will need. Note, this is a lot of customization, so just make sure you have a clear direction before starting, especially with an e-commerce app that could get more complex then initially thought.

Ok thanks for your points too, it really helps me to better handle my case.

I'm comfortable with Android and web dev, but not any php stuffs.

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