Building a Real Online Store for POUR ELLE
POUR ELLE didn't need a simple showcase site. The client wanted a real commerce operation: a catalogue, order management, an international customer base, and genuine post-purchase support, not just nice photos on a page.
The technical choice: a real backend, not a facade
Unlike a static corporate site, POUR ELLE needs to hold state: accounts, orders, stock. The
stack: Node.js + Express on the backend, a local SQLite database (better-sqlite3) rather than a
hosted database service, password-hash authentication with JWT sessions, file uploads through
Multer, and Resend/Nodemailer for transactional emails. Helmet, CORS and rate limiting protect
the API. The frontend (HTML/CSS/JS) is served directly by Express from a public/ folder, with a
separate admin area.
Visible today on the live site (pourelle.online): catalogue with search, cart, multi-currency support (XOF, EUR, USD), international delivery, WhatsApp customer assistance, a review system, bilingual FR/EN storefront.
The real challenges
Three things took the most time, and they're not the ones you'd expect going in:
- Making the storefront properly responsive, not just "it displays on mobile," but a shopping experience that stays pleasant on a small screen.
- Absorbing the extra pages the client kept adding as the project went on, beyond the original scope, a classic of any real client project, which demands an architecture flexible enough to absorb change without breaking everything.
- Integrating payment-method APIs, the part that touches real money is always the one that demands the most rigor and leaves the least room for error.
The result
After several rounds of adjustments with the client, she was happy with the final product. It's the kind of project that's a reminder that an e-commerce site is never really "done" at delivery, it keeps moving with the real business it serves.