Business Context
A small Arkansas retailer selling health, beauty, grocery, household, pet and fragrance products, already listing on marketplaces and wanting its own direct-to-customer store and a wholesale channel.
The Problem
The business needed a store it owned rather than rented: its own catalogue, its own customers and its own payments, without paying for a stack of apps to get wholesale, policies, staff access and proper order records. Off-the-shelf platforms solve the storefront but leave the owner assembling plugins for everything around it.
Discovery Process
Interviewed the client one decision at a time: payment provider, how sales tax should work for an Arkansas-registered seller, shipping rules, who on the team needs which access, and which marketplace exports the catalogue should come from.
Requirements Mapped
- Catalogue with brands, categories, variants and stock, importable from Amazon, Walmart and eBay exports.
- Cart, Buy now and a compact checkout paid through PayPal, with server-side payment capture.
- Refunds and cancellations that return money through PayPal before the order changes state.
- Automatic sales tax per product type (Stripe Tax), recorded for filing.
- Branded order emails from the store's own domain.
- Wholesale applications, policy pages the owner must confirm, and an audit log of every admin action.
- Staff accounts with per-person permissions.
Key Decisions
- Build on a code-owned platform (Next.js, PostgreSQL) rather than a hosted store builder, so the same platform can serve later clients.
- Lock checkout on the live site until payment, tax, email and policy pages are ready; the owner can lift the tax lock only with a recorded, written agreement.
- Keep money moves explicit: refunds go back through PayPal first, and uncertain payment outcomes are checked with PayPal rather than guessed.
- Separate deployment per client so payment accounts and customer data never share a site.
Workflow Rules
- The owner imports or adds products and confirms the store policy pages.
- A customer adds items, checks out and pays on PayPal's page.
- The order is captured server-side, stock is reserved, and branded emails go to the customer and the owners.
- Staff ship, refund or cancel within the permissions the owner gave them; every action is logged.
System Solution
A complete direct-to-customer store with its own admin: catalogue and marketplace import, checkout and PayPal payments, refunds, sales tax, branded email, wholesale applications, policy pages, staff permissions, password reset and an audit trail.
Current Outcome & Limitations
The store is live on the client's own domain with its catalogue online and checkout open. The client's team manages products and orders themselves. Sales results are not yet measured.
Limitation Warning: A live end-to-end test passed in October 2026: a real PayPal payment with sales tax and a first-order discount, followed by a refund through PayPal. Wholesale buyers apply and are approved, but wholesale pricing is not built yet. There are no customer accounts yet.
Lessons Learned
Locking checkout until every launch requirement is met turned launch from a judgement call into a checklist the owner could see and clear.
Remaining Work Checklist
Build wholesale pricing and add customer accounts.
Next Phase Directions
The same platform is being prepared for further client stores, each on its own deployment with its own payment accounts.