El Depo

Why a sample

El Depo is an example brand. We built this site so a distributor can see, and try, how their own online store would work before deciding anything: with products, prices, offers and real test payments.

It is not a client. It is the base we adapt to each business: their brand, catalog, prices and way of getting paid.

The problem it solves

Orders coming in from everywhere

Many wholesalers take orders over WhatsApp, phone and spreadsheets. Messages get lost, data is copied by hand and nobody knows what each shop ordered.

A catalog that changes every week

Prices, offers and stock move often. The business has to be able to update the catalog without depending on a developer.

Getting paid without friction

Some customers want to pay online and others prefer to arrange it with the store. The shop has to accept both.

What we built

Shop by the case

Catalog with categories, filters and instant search. Offers are featured in an accessible carousel: it pauses on hover, with the keyboard or when the tab is hidden, and respects reduced-motion preferences.

Cart and checkout

Customers build the order from their phone. The cart lives in the browser and the total is always calculated on the server: an order never carries prices that could be tampered with.

Mercado Pago payments

Mercado Pago Checkout Pro, or arranging payment with the store. Payment status is confirmed by asking Mercado Pago, with signature checks on notifications, not by trusting the browser.

Admin panel

Sales for today and the last 7 days, orders and their statuses, product creation and editing with photo upload, offers and a contact inbox.

Order over WhatsApp

For those who still prefer chat, a button opens WhatsApp with the cart already written in the message.

Technical decisions

A modular monolith

Spring Boot with products, orders and auth modules instead of microservices. Simpler to run, and more than enough for a wholesale catalog.

A secure panel

HttpOnly session cookie, BCrypt passwords, CSRF protection and a state machine that rejects invalid order changes. Orders use identifiers that cannot be guessed.

Photos checked by their content

Each photo's type is detected from its bytes, not its file name, and it is stored under a new name. Dangerous files disguised as images can't get in.

Free hosting, on purpose

Everything runs in a single container on Render, with the database on Neon. Photos are stored in the database because the free plan's disk is ephemeral.

How we worked

We started from our white-label marketplace base and adapted it to the industry. Each feature was built on its own branch and merged only once it worked end to end and the tests passed. Mercado Pago was integrated with test credentials first, and the sample runs in demo mode: anyone can pay with a test card without creating an account.

The results

A complete store in 5 days

From October 2 to 6, 2026: catalog, cart, payments, admin panel and deploy.

107 automated tests

Covering products, orders, payments, webhook signatures, session and CSRF, photo upload and the panel.

SEO and best practices at 100

Measured with Lighthouse on mobile, with 91 in accessibility. Performance is the next step: the free plan takes a while to wake up and the sample photos are heavy.

Ready to adapt

Brand, catalog, store details and payment methods are configured for each business.

Conclusion

El Depo shows how a distributor would sell online without depending on someone else's platform: with their own brand, getting paid through Mercado Pago and running everything from their own panel. What you see working is what we adapt to your business.