Founder Experience / Independent Project
CompletedShoplit E-commerce API
A fully featured e-commerce backend covering product listings, carts, orders, payments, notifications and API documentation.
Industry
E-commerce
Role
Independent Project
Period
2024-2025
Services involved
This is founder experience, not a CharisForge client engagement. Andrew worked on this as independent project, before or during CharisForge’s formation.
01 · Context
What the platform needed.
Shoplit was built as a complete e-commerce backend from the ground up: product listings, carts, orders, payments, notifications, authentication and documentation. The full set of systems a real storefront depends on, rather than a single isolated feature.
02 · Engineering challenge
What made the work meaningful.
Each piece (cart logic, order state, payment confirmation, SMS notifications) had to work correctly on its own and stay consistent with every other piece, and the backend needed to hold up under real load rather than just pass a manual smoke test.
03 · Contribution
What Andrew worked on.
Andrew designed and built the complete backend independently: product and cart management, the order system, Paystack payment integration, Twilio SMS notifications, authentication (JWT and OAuth), caching, automated testing and API documentation.
04 · Engineering approach
How it was built.
The core commerce logic (products, carts, orders) was built with Django REST Framework over PostgreSQL, with Redis caching frequently-read data such as product listings. Payments were integrated through Paystack, with order status updated on confirmed payment events, and Twilio handled order and delivery notifications by SMS. Authentication supported both JWT (via Djoser and SimpleJWT) and OAuth. The API was documented with drf-spectacular, covered with automated tests using pytest, and load-tested with Locust.
05 · Key capabilities delivered
What shipped.
- Full e-commerce REST API: products, carts and orders
- Paystack payment integration
- Twilio SMS notifications
- JWT and OAuth authentication
- Redis caching for frequently-read data
- Automated testing (pytest) and load testing (Locust)
- API documentation and cloud image handling
06 · Technologies
07 · Outcome
What it delivered.
- A complete, working e-commerce backend covering the full purchase flow.
- Redis caching contributed to an estimated 30% improvement in API response times, based on the founder's own project benchmarks.
- Automated and load testing in place before completion, not added after the fact.
08 · Experience brought forward
What this experience brings to CharisForge.
Building every layer of a commerce backend end to end, and load-testing it rather than assuming it would hold up, is the kind of completeness CharisForge aims for on every project: not just a feature that works in a demo, but a system that's been checked under something closer to real conditions.
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