a proper commerce backend is a lot of standing infrastructure. a server, a cache, a database, all awake at three in the morning whether anyone is shopping or not. for a small shop that is mostly cost with nothing to show for it.
the swap
so for the imelabs shop we kept none of it running.
- printify holds the catalogue and does fulfilment
- stripe checkout takes the money
- a serverless function glues the two and confirms the order on a webhook
there is no inventory table because there is no inventory. there is no warehouse because the print partner ships it. the function only wakes when someone buys something.
the honest bit
this works because the shop is small and the products are print on demand. the moment you need real stock, real returns, real warehousing, you want the boring backend back. but until then, paying for idle servers to feel like a real shop is just paying to feel like a real shop.