Forum Ecommerce

Full-stack ecommerce app with a React frontend and an Express/MongoDB backend.

Features

• User authentication with JWT
• Product and category browsing
• Cart and order workflows
• Admin endpoints for management
• File uploads served from /uploads

Tech Stack

• Frontend: React (Create React App), React Router, Axios, Bootstrap
• Backend: Node.js, Express, MongoDB, Mongoose, Multer

Project Structure

• backend/ Express API and MongoDB models
• frontend/ React app

Requirements

• Node.js and npm
• MongoDB instance (local or hosted)

Setup

Backend

cd backend
npm install

Create a .env file in backend/:

MONGO_URI=mongodb://localhost:27017/forum_ecommerce
JWT_SECRET=your_jwt_secret
PORT=5000

Run the API:

npm run dev

Optional seed data (creates an admin user and sample data):

npm run seed

Frontend

cd frontend
npm install

Optional .env in frontend/:

REACT_APP_API_URL=http://localhost:5000

Run the app:

npm start

Environment Variables

Backend (backend/.env):

• MONGO_URI (required) MongoDB connection string
• JWT_SECRET (required) JWT signing secret
• PORT (optional) API port (default 5000)
• ADMIN_NAME (optional) seed admin name
• ADMIN_EMAIL (optional) seed admin email
• ADMIN_PASSWORD (optional) seed admin password

Frontend (frontend/.env):

• REACT_APP_API_URL (optional) API base URL (default http://localhost:5000)

Notes

• Uploaded files are stored in backend/uploads/ and served at /uploads.