ShopNest - Full-Stack MERN E-Commerce App

A professionally engineered, full-stack E-commerce platform built strictly using modern standard React (CRA) on the frontend and Express/MongoDB on the backend.

--- ## 🛠 Tech Stack Details - **Frontend:** Pure React.js (`react-scripts`), Redux Toolkit (for Cart state management), AuthContext API (for JWT user sessions). - **Backend:** Node.js, Express.js architecture mapped with middleware-based routing. - **Database:** MongoDB (via Mongoose schemas). - **Features:** Unified Admin Dashboard, Direct Cloudinary Content Maps, Personal User Profiles matching mapped Order Histories. - **Payments:** Razorpay fully implemented (utilize your test metrics or placeholder). - **Cloud Storage:** Cloudinary integration for Product image uploading securely via Multer. --- ## 🚀 Quick Start / Local Development Guide The workspace is configured beautifully using a monorepo-friendly setup with `concurrently`, enabling you to start everything from the very root folder. ### 1️⃣ Dependencies & Environments Make sure you have MongoDB running locally, or map it to a remote database string. Inside the `backend/` folder, ensure your `.env` looks like this: ```env PORT=5000 NODE_ENV=development MONGO_URI=mongodb://127.0.0.1:27017/shopnest JWT_SECRET=super_secret_key RAZORPAY_KEY_ID=your_key_id RAZORPAY_KEY_SECRET=your_key_secret ``` From the **root folder** `shopnest/`, trigger a full install across environments: ```bash npm run build ``` ### 2️⃣ Populate the Database (Seeding) Test the platform rapidly featuring beautiful dummy products (Unsplash) and automatic `Admin` role provisioning: ```bash npm run seed ``` > **Seed Admin Access:** Email: `admin@shopnest.com` | Password: `password123` ### 3️⃣ Run Servers Start Run this single command at the root to bind the Backend (Port 5000) and Frontend (Port 3000) natively: ```bash npm run dev ``` --- ## ☁️ 1-Click Deployment (Render Free-Tier Optimized) The server codebase features a seamless fallback mechanic leveraging Node `process.env.NODE_ENV === "production"`. When deployed to Render as a singular instance, the Express backend hosts and correctly resolves static routes to `/frontend/build` rendering the whole platform completely free on 1 Node server. 1. Publish this repo onto **GitHub**. 2. Go to [Render Dashboard](https://dashboard.render.com). 3. Connect Repo -> Create a **Web Service**. 4. Configure Build Command: `npm run render-build` *(This cleanly installs API + UI node_modules then generates `react-scripts build`)* 5. Configure Start Command: `npm start` 6. Open **Advanced > Environment Variables** and map your `.env` fields heavily defining `NODE_ENV = production`. 7. Hit **Deploy**. The robust path resolving inside `/backend/server.js` hosts it fluidly! --- ## 📄 Postman Documentations This repository includes a fully-scaffolded API testing toolkit: **`ShopNest_Postman_Collection.json`**. Simply Import this file directly into the local Postman IDE. It features variables like `{{token}}` properly mapped to effortlessly check protected admin/user/order payloads. Happy coding! # ShopNet