Carhuna Web Development
Web Development
End-To-End Web Development Services:
Crafting a Platform for the Online Automotive Community to Buy and Sell Cars.
Introduction
Meet Carhuna, an innovative online marketplace and automotive community platform that connects buyers with reputable and established dealers. To stand out in the highly competitive industry, Carhuna sought a reliable, secure, and scalable platform capable of integrating numerous third-party services and offering an API for external partners. In addition to the branding and design, our team was entrusted with the responsibility of developing a cutting-edge web solution to bring Carhuna's vision to life.
Challenge
Building a Robust, Scalable, and Secure Commerce Platform that Connects Buyers and Sellers in the Luxury Car Community.
Developing a robust platform capable of handling growth, ensuring security, and seamlessly integrating with various services is essential for thriving in a highly competitive market. We provided Carhuna with the following services:
- Web Development: We built the frontend of the website based on the brand guidelines, brand assets, UI design and working prototype. Our expertise lies in modern web development tools, so we chose NextJS as a frontend framework which utilises the ReactJS library – we used React Query for querying the API. For the backend we opted for NodeJS and the ExpressJS framework, Prisma ORM as our data layer, and Redis for the session cache. A common practice in 2023 is to build everything in TypeScript.
- Architecture: Our preferred architecture utilises a microservices approach. This allowed us to develop, deploy, and scale different parts of the application independently, increasing flexibility and resilience. To ensure seamless deployment and management of these microservices, we dockerized them. Docker containers offer numerous benefits, including simplified configuration management, increased portability, and improved resource efficiency.
- Security: We adhered to security best practices throughout development and conducted a penetration test pre-launch. We built validation into the backend by default for each request, added rate-limiting software to prevent DDoS attacks, and ensured our tooling (Prisma ORM) prevents SQL injection attacks.
- Infrastructure: We set up the infrastructure on AWS, featuring separate accounts for development, staging, and production. The setup included unlimited ASGs for the production site, S3 buckets for data storage, PostgreSQL RDS for each account, CloudWatch, CloudFront CDN, and a full CI/CD pipeline using CodeCommit, CodePipeline, CodeDeploy, and CodeBuild.
- Third-Party Integrations: We seamlessly integrated 10+ third-party services, including Stripe for one-time payments and invoicing, Credas for user identity verification, SendGrid for transactional and marketing emails, Twilio for verification and SMS, Imgix for image optimisation, Pusher for real-time updates, Zendesk for customer support ticketing, and Salesforce CRM.
- API Development: We built a programming language agnostic API that enables authorized data transfer for website providers to create classified ads on behalf of their clients’ (car dealers) websites. We also designed and built PDF documentation and online Redocly documentation for the API, facilitating a smooth integration process for anyone with the technical knowledge.
Conclusion
Our collaboration with Carhuna demonstrates the immense value of having a team of expert web developers architect a resilient, scalable, and secure platform that propels a tech start-up to success. By understanding Carhuna's unique requirements and leveraging cutting-edge technologies, we delivered a robust platform with seamless third-party integrations and an accessible API for external partners. To elevate your online platform with cutting-edge web development, reach out for a consultation today and allow our expertise to steer your business towards greater heights.
