First of all, this will be a series of "higher-level" thoughts / processes rather than actual code.
The code will be closed source to start with and may be released upon completion.
Main Goals
Automated as much as possible Cheap to run Easy to deploy Eco-friendly Site is aimed at small buisnessI will be going into a lot of details in each of these areas in further posts, but first I will do a run down on how I will build the site.
I will be coding the site in python using the Django framework.
Python has a huge range of libraries that will make it easy to write the advanced features I need the site to accomplish.
I will be using Opencart as a front-end template.
I am no front-end designer, so it's easier for me to convert their front-end design into Django templates.
The entire web stack (NGINX+ mysql etc) will be dockerised for easy fast deployment.
The stack will also include a full secure email server with webmail.
Pretty much choose your domain name and your e-commerce site is ready to go.
It will also automatically create a free SSL cert from Let's Encrypt using their API.
The site will also interact with Trademe (a NZ auction website) and automatically list products.
It will also contain a basic accounting package which will take care of basic inventory management / invoice & report generation. Enough to hand over to a small business accountant at the end of a financial year. This will save on the cost of accounting software.
The site will have a shipping module which will make picking and packing a breeze (it will interact with a Raspberry Pi acting as a scanning station).
The end result will be a website where you add products and let it do it's thing.
The next bit of "work" is when an address label pops out of the thermal printer connected to the Raspberry Pi. Scan the bar-code on this label to be shown what to pack (with error checking).
In the next part I'll be discussing how I'll be tackling inventory management / invoicing.