• 

  Premium and luxurious homepage

• 

  Product feature

• 

  Custom Dashboard

That Chocolate Cake – E-commerce Store

Inspiration

I run a small home bakery selling chocolate cakes, and honestly, dealing with the tech side has been a nightmare. I've been stuck with Wix for years, paying them way too much money every year. The thing is, I barely use most of what they offer. I just needed a decent website to show my cakes and let people order them, but I was paying for all these fancy features I didn't even understand.

When I heard about Bolt and how it could actually build apps just by talking to it, I got curious. Could I finally ditch Wix and save myself all that money? I decided to give it a shot and see if I could build something that actually worked for my business instead of paying for stuff I'd never use.

What it does

My custom e-commerce platform does exactly what my chocolate cake business needs: Customer Side:

• Beautiful, premium-looking storefront that showcases my chocolate cakes
• Shopping cart that works smoothly
• Automatic email confirmations for both customers and me when orders come in

Admin Side:

• Dashboard where I can easily add or remove seasonal cake flavors
• Order management system to track what needs to be baked and delivered
• Basic sales analytics so I know what's selling well
• Simple enough that my mom can help manage orders when I'm busy baking

It's basically a custom-built alternative to expensive website builders.

How we built it

I started by asking Bolt to look at my existing Wix site and redesign it with a more luxury, premium feel. The shopping cart logic was built automatically - something that would have taken me forever to figure out just worked right away.

Once the customer-facing store was running, I realized I needed some way to manage my inventory. So I asked Bolt to build me an admin dashboard. This happened super fast, and suddenly I had this clean interface where I could manage products and orders, even customers.

The whole process was just me describing what I needed in regular English, and Bolt would build it. When I wanted changes, I'd use the Discuss mode to talk through ideas, then use Implement Plan to make it happen. I still don't understand the database connections or backend stuff, but Bolt handled all that technical complexity.

Challenges we ran into

The hardest part was getting over the feeling that my custom site wasn't as "complete" as Wix. Like, Wix has tons of features and integrations, and mine doesn't. But then I realized - so what? I wasn't using most of those features anyway.

Another challenge was trusting the process when I didn't understand how everything worked under the hood. I still don't really get the database stuff or how the emails get sent automatically. But Bolt makes it so easy to change things that I stopped worrying about it.

At first I was worried about maintenance and what happens if something breaks, but turns out I can just tell Bolt about any problems and it fixes them right away.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

I'm really proud that I actually did it - I built a professional e-commerce platform without knowing how to code! The site looks way more premium than my old Wix site, and customers definitely notice the difference.

The admin dashboard is probably my biggest win. I always thought it'll be difficult to build something like that but with Botl, it's actually possible.

Most importantly, I broke free from paying hundreds of dollars every year for features I didn't need. This platform does exactly what my business requires, nothing more, nothing less.

What we learned

The biggest thing I learned is that I don't need to pay for a million features I'll never touch. I can just build exactly what I need, when I need it.

I also learned that you don't need to understand all the technical stuff to create something professional. Bolt handles the complicated backend while I focus on running my bakery.

The Discuss mode is amazing. When I need new features, I just describe them in normal language instead of trying to figure out complex settings or plugins.

What's next for That Chocolate Cake – E-commerce Store

I want to add a few more features to help with my business:

• Social media marketing automation
• Newsletter subscription and sending newsletters
• If possible, customers can also create accounts and get reminders for birthdays, anniversaries etc (only if my business scales)

What's great is that I can add these features when I need them, instead of paying for them upfront like with subscription services. I also think this approach could help other small businesses. Instead of being stuck with expensive, bloated platforms, more entrepreneurs could build custom solutions that actually fit their specific needs. My chocolate cake site is proof that you don't need to be a tech person or spend tons of money to have something that works perfectly for your business.

Built With

• bolt
• netlify
• supabase