Picklewear v2 is the fully reworked successor to Aussie PicklePro, originally a Laravel-based e-commerce app, now rebuilt from the ground up with React.js, Laravel, and Inertia.js, ditching jQuery for a proper modern frontend. What started as a Linux box with basic SSH is now deployed on DigitalOcean with CI/CD handled via Laravel Forge, making deployments clean and automated.
- The platform pivots to focus purely on Pickleball apparel after I nearly got sued for 'trademark infringement', and pushes far beyond the original build. Emails run through Zoho’s API, not SMTP, with auto-refreshing tokens and a dedicated inbox, all job-queued for async delivery.
- Admins get real-time notifications for mailing list signups, purchases, and order completions. The dashboard's had a full glow-up—filterable, searchable tables, tracked order statuses, and a legit checkout experience with Google API email validation.
- Products are synced directly from Alibaba via a custom command, no manual updates needed. UX is sharper with breadcrumbs, throttled search, price and colour filters, and a smoother overall flow. Stripe powers payments, and the whole thing runs like a well-oiled machine, built to scale and stay chill.
