From Farm to Customer: Custom E-commerce Backend with Automated Shipping

OrganicShiitake (organicshiitake.bg) is a Bulgarian organic shiitake mushroom farm that had been selling primarily through farmers' markets and word of mouth. As demand grew, so did the manual work: taking orders, creating Econt shipping labels by hand, answering the same product questions over and over, and trying to manage wholesale inquiries through email threads. They needed a custom admin backend that could handle their complex product catalogue, automate shipping, and manage both retail and wholesale channels from one dashboard.

The products required more than a simple title and price. Each mushroom product - dried, fresh, or powder - needed configurable detail panels with nutritional data, health benefit summaries, preparation instructions, and storage guidelines. Combined with multi-variant pricing for different package sizes, Econt courier integration, and a bilingual BG/EN interface, no off-the-shelf platform could deliver what they needed.

Project: organicshiitake.bg

The Challenge

OrganicShiitake had built a loyal local following through farmers' markets, but every part of their operation was manual. Orders came in through phone calls and messages, shipping labels were created by hand in Econt's portal, and wholesale inquiries from restaurants and distributors were scattered across email threads with no tracking.

The core problems:

• Manual order processing and shipping - every Econt label created by hand, copying addresses from messages into the courier portal
• Products needed rich detail pages with nutritional information, health benefits, and preparation guides - not just a photo and a price
• Each product came in multiple sizes (50g, 100g, 250g, 500g) with different pricing, requiring a variant system with per-variant inventory tracking
• No blog or content marketing - no way to educate customers about the health benefits of organic shiitake or build organic search traffic
• Wholesale inquiries from restaurants and distributors mixed in with retail messages - no structured pipeline, no tracking
• No analytics or conversion tracking - no visibility into what was working or where customers were coming from

The farm needed to move from manual operations to a professional e-commerce platform with a custom admin backend that automates the repetitive work and scales without requiring more staff. The site also needed to serve both Bulgarian and international customers with bilingual support.

Our Solution

We built a custom e-commerce platform using React, TypeScript, and Supabase, with a powerful admin backend designed to automate the workflows that were consuming the team's time.

1. Custom Admin Dashboard

The admin dashboard is the central hub for the entire operation. From one interface, the team manages products (with multi-variant pricing and per-variant inventory), processes orders, views customer history, publishes blog posts, manages the photo gallery, and creates promo codes with usage tracking and expiration controls. Everything that used to be scattered across phone calls, spreadsheets, and email threads now lives in one place with full search, filtering, and export capabilities.

2. Econt Shipping Automation

This was the biggest operational improvement. We integrated directly with Econt's API so that when an order comes in, the admin can generate a shipping label with one click. The system automatically pulls the customer's delivery address, calculates shipping costs based on package weight and destination in real time, and creates the courier waybill. Customers can select their preferred Econt office or request door-to-door delivery during checkout. What used to take 10-15 minutes per order - manually copying addresses, selecting courier options, printing labels - now happens in seconds.

3. Product Detail System

Each product page features configurable content panels that the team can populate from the admin dashboard: nutritional data, health benefit summaries, preparation and cooking instructions, storage guidelines, and sourcing information. These panels are collapsible and structured, giving customers the depth of information they need to make an informed purchase. For a product like organic shiitake - where many customers are learning about it for the first time - this educational layer is essential for conversion. Multi-variant pricing lets each product support multiple sizes with independent pricing and real-time inventory tracking.

4. Blog and Content Marketing

We built an integrated blog with category filtering so the team can publish articles about shiitake health benefits, recipes, farming practices, and sustainability. The blog is managed entirely from the admin dashboard with a visual editor - no technical skills required. A photo gallery showcases the farm and production process, building trust with customers who care about sourcing. Posts are automatically optimised for SEO with proper heading structure, meta descriptions, and Open Graph tags, turning the blog into an organic traffic engine that grows over time.

5. Wholesale Inquiry Channel

Rather than forcing wholesale buyers through a retail checkout, we built a dedicated inquiry page. Restaurants, retailers, and distributors fill out a structured form with their business details, desired products and quantities, and delivery requirements. These submissions land in a separate pipeline in the admin dashboard with email notifications to the sales team. This clean separation means wholesale leads get the personal attention they need without cluttering the retail order flow - creating a proper B2B channel that did not exist before.

6. Conversion Tracking

We implemented Facebook Pixel with server-side CAPI tracking to capture every conversion accurately - even from visitors using ad blockers or iOS privacy features that block standard browser-side tracking. Combined with promo codes, guest cart saving, and abandoned checkout recovery, the platform is built to attract, convert, and retarget visitors at every stage of the funnel. The admin dashboard surfaces key metrics so the team can see what is working and where to invest their marketing budget.

The Results

OrganicShiitake went from manual operations and farmers' market sales to a professional e-commerce platform with a custom admin backend that automates the heavy lifting.

• Shipping label creation automated: One-click Econt labels replaced manual address copying - saving hours of repetitive work every week
• Everything managed from one dashboard: Products, orders, blog, gallery, promo codes, and customer data in a single admin interface
• Rich product pages driving conversions: Configurable nutritional, health, and preparation panels that educate customers and build trust
• Blog building organic traffic: Category-filtered content driving search traffic in both Bulgarian and English without paid ads
• Wholesale B2B channel established: Dedicated inquiry flow with structured data capture separating bulk leads from retail orders
• Full conversion attribution: Facebook Pixel with server-side CAPI capturing every conversion accurately for smarter ad spending

The farm can now scale its sales without scaling its administrative workload. The custom admin backend handles the repetitive operations automatically, the blog builds organic traffic that compounds over time, and the bilingual platform serves both Bulgarian and international customers from a single codebase.

Technology Stack

The custom admin backend is what ties everything together. Rather than building two separate sites or bolting plugins onto a generic platform, we built a single application where every feature - from Econt shipping automation to bilingual product management to wholesale lead tracking - is managed from one dashboard. This keeps maintenance simple and means new features slot in cleanly as the business grows.