I replaced most of a dev team with Claude Code to build a production e-commerce store. Here's what broke.
First post here. Figured a real project beats an introduction post, so: here's one, warts included. A women's clothing brand needed an online store synced to their inventory system, matched to an existing React prototype pixel for pixel, on a budget that ruled out the usual enterprise platforms. I built it solo: WordPress, WooCommerce, and Claude Code writing most of the code while I did the…
A women's clothing brand needed an online store synced to their inventory system that matched an existing React prototype pixel-for-pixel, all within a tight budget. The writer built the store solo using WordPress, WooCommerce, and Claude Code to write most of the code while they handled the architecture and reviewed everything.
The default answer was too expensive and didn't fit the design. The client's inventory lived in 1C, a corporate accounting platform that only communicated through XML, which necessitated building a custom solution instead of using Bitrix, the dominant commercial CMS in Russia. This choice broke the project on two fronts: cost and design.
The budget was already stretched thin by licensing and integrator fees, while the client's specific design requirements - a quiet-luxury look with four colors, two typefaces, and zero border radius - were difficult to replicate using stock themes. The writer had to build the site from scratch, using a block theme with a fully custom design system, and integrate real-time stock from an ERP, card and instant-payment processing, courier delivery, a cookie banner, and ecommerce event tracking.
Despite the challenges, the writer used Claude Code to write most of the code, but the agent still required human oversight, review, and verification to catch bugs and ensure the design system was followed strictly.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
