Northline

The brief

What was actually broken

Makers were stitching a theme, a spreadsheet, and a group chat into something that looked like a shop and behaved like a mess. Inventory lived in three places. Refunds lived in none.

How it shipped

The work, in order

1. 01

   One catalog

   A single product model for the storefront, the vendor desk, and staff tools. If it is not in the catalog, it is not for sale.

2. 02

   Vendor + staff

   Roles that can merchandize, fulfill, and refund without opening Slack. The desk is the product.

3. 03

   Checkout that fails loudly

   Stripe Checkout and webhooks that surface the failure instead of swallowing it. Silence is how money disappears.

The storefront is the easy part. The product is the desk behind it.

What changed

After it left the repo

• — Makers publish once and sell on a storefront that shares the same record as ops.
• — Staff can refund and restock without a spreadsheet round-trip.
• — Failed payments show up on the desk the same afternoon, not in a support thread next week.