Premier Awnings -- Configurable Commerce and Operations Platform

Premier Awnings sells premium retractable awnings, pergolas, solar shades, fabrics, controls, installation, warranty, and finance-led home improvement packages. The delivered system was built as both a public digital showroom and an operational platform for configurable made-to-measure orders.

The source project shows a React, TypeScript, Vite, Express, PostgreSQL, and Drizzle application with public product routes, model pages, finance journeys, checkout, quotation payment links, admin product and order management, fabric and attribute management, audit logs, abandoned cart tracking, Office 365 email, invoice generation, object storage, and backend-owned pricing.

What Was Delivered

Premier Awnings required a platform that could sell a fitted product with many variables: product model, dimensions, fabric, motorisation, sensors, warranty, installation, payment route, finance status, and service coverage.

The delivered platform includes:

• Public pages for home, shop, product detail, model pages, finance, installation, maintenance, warranty, FAQ, contact, and service-area routes.
• Cart and checkout flows for configurable awning orders.
• Backend pricing services that act as the source of truth for totals, VAT, warranty, installation, and line items.
• PostgreSQL and Drizzle schema for products, attributes, product-specific attribute values, fabrics, orders, quotations, line items, snapshots, customers, roles, and permissions.
• Immutable pricing snapshots so quotations and orders preserve point-in-time commercial truth.
• Public quotation view and quotation payment routes.
• Stripe payment handling and payment success journeys.
• Kanda Finance webhook handling that can create orders when finance is approved or completed, with idempotency around finance application IDs.
• Admin dashboards for orders, quotations, callbacks, customers, products, fabrics, attributes, settings, audit logs, abandoned carts, and role-based access.
• Office 365 email integration for confirmations, invoices, and shared mailbox workflows.
• PDF invoice generation using stored pricing data rather than recalculating totals at render time.
• Object storage integration for product and uploaded assets.
• Local service-area pages to support installation searches in London, Essex, Kent, Surrey, and surrounding locations.

Platform Diagram

Homeowner
  -> Product model / shop / service-area page
  -> Configurable product
  -> Cart
       -> Stripe checkout
       -> quotation payment
       -> Kanda finance application
  -> Order / finance / payment success

Operations team
  -> Admin dashboard
  -> Products, fabrics, attributes
  -> Quotations, orders, callbacks, customers
  -> Office 365 emails and invoice PDFs
  -> Audit logs and abandoned cart recovery

The Challenge

Awning sales sit between ecommerce and project delivery. A buyer expects a polished consumer experience, but the business still has to manage configurable products, installation logic, deposits, finance applications, quotation records, customer communication, and operational follow-up.

The risky part is pricing. If totals are calculated differently in the cart, checkout, quotation, invoice, email, or admin screen, the business loses trust and creates reconciliation work. The platform therefore needed a single pricing contract and a clean handoff from quote to order to invoice.

The site also needed to support local search. A homeowner is rarely just searching for an awning in the abstract; they want a company that can survey, supply, install, and support the product in their area.

Our Solution

We built Premier Awnings around a controlled commerce spine.

Configurable Products and Pricing

Products are backed by normalized attributes and product-specific values, with fabric data separated into its own catalogue. Pricing is owned by the backend rather than scattered through UI components. The frontend renders stored values and uses shared currency formatting, while checkout and payment routes rely on validated order summaries.

Quotations and orders store snapshot data, giving the business an immutable record of what the customer saw and accepted. That snapshot approach protects the legal and commercial trail when prices, products, fabrics, or options change later.

Checkout, Quotation, and Finance Routes

The platform supports several buying paths: direct checkout, quotation review, quotation payment, Stripe payment, and Kanda Finance. Finance webhooks can create orders automatically when an application is approved or completed, and the finance application ID is used to prevent duplicate orders from concurrent webhook events.

This gives Premier Awnings flexibility without losing operational control. A customer can enquire, configure, pay, or finance the purchase, while the admin team still sees one coherent order and quotation record.

Admin and Operations

The admin system includes product management, fabrics, attributes, callbacks, customers, quotations, orders, audit logs, settings, abandoned carts, and RBAC. This lets staff adjust the product catalogue, manage quotes and orders, review customers, recover carts, and keep operational activity traceable.

Office 365 email integration supports customer communication through the business mail environment. Invoice generation is render-only, using complete stored pricing fields and failing fast if pricing data is incomplete, which prevents hidden recalculation errors.

Local Discovery

The public site combines product storytelling with model pages, finance content, trust messaging, and service-area routes. This gives homeowners a polished buying experience while supporting the practical local intent behind awning installation searches.

Results

Premier Awnings now has a platform that behaves like a premium showroom on the front end and a controlled operations system behind the scenes. Homeowners can browse products, understand models, explore finance, and move into checkout or quotation routes. The business can manage products, attributes, fabrics, orders, payments, finance approvals, emails, invoices, callbacks, audit logs, and abandoned carts from one system.

For a made-to-measure installation business, the important outcome is control: the same product, pricing, customer, quote, order, payment, and document data flows through the whole lifecycle.