Community Marketplace App using MERN Stack

Building a community Marketplace App will help you understand the foundational concepts of full-stack development using the MERN(MongoDB, ExpressJS, React, NodeJS) stack. This tutorial will guide you to set up the backend server for the project and demonstrate the integration of frontend functionality with backend setup. This tutorial will teach you how to leverage mongoDB to create and store product profiles.

Preview

Prerequisites

• React JS
• MongoDB
• ExpressJS
• NodeJS
• MERN Stack

Approach to Create Community Marketplace App

• Define a functional component named App in 'App.js'.
• Make a list of necessary dependencies and component and import them.
• Define Nav and ProductList components and wrap them inside in the App components to provide access to shared context data
• Create Seller.js page with form component.
• Use React Router to navigate between different pages.
• Use Axios to fetch data from backend server.
• Establish connections to the MongoDB database from the backend server using Mongoose or MongoDB native drivers.

Note: You have to install MongoDB and get the URI from that so that you can connect to it and use the database respectively.

Steps to Create a Backend Server:

Step 1: Create a new directory named backend.

mkdir backend
cd backend

Step 2: Create a server using the following command in your terminal.

npm init -y

Step 3: Install the necessary package in your server using the following command.

npm install express mongoose mongodb cors

Project Structure:

Updated dependencies:

"dependencies": {
 "cors": "^2.8.5",
 "express": "^4.18.3",
 "mongodb": "^6.3.0",
 "mongoose": "^8.2.0",
}

Step 4: Create a file 'server.js' and set up the server.

Start your server using the following command.

node server.js

Steps to Create the Frontend:

Step 1: Create the frontend repository named client in the main repository.

mkdir client
cd client

Step 2: Create React project using following command.

npx create-react-app .

Step 3: Install necessary dependencies in your application using following command.

npm install axios react-router-dom

Project Structure:

Updated dependencies:

"dependencies": {
 "axios": "^1.6.7",
 "react": "^18.2.0",
 "react-dom": "^18.2.0",
 "react-router-dom": "^6.22.2",
 "react-scripts": "5.0.1",
 "web-vitals": "^2.1.4"
}

Example: Create the files according to the project structure and write the following code.

Start the project using the given command.

npm start

Output:

• Browser Output

• Output of data saved in database: