Gatsby Ecommerce Demo is a starter demo ecommerce site that pairs Gatsby with the Contentful CMS and the Snipcart checkout service, acting as the companion application for the Aquasar article "Building an Ecommerce Site with Gatsby, Contentful and Snipcart."
What is the Gatsby Ecommerce Demo?
The Gatsby Ecommerce Demo is a demonstration ecommerce website that combines three services: Gatsby as the static site generator, Contentful as the headless content management system, and Snipcart as the shopping cart and checkout provider. It takes product and content data from Contentful and generates a set of static storefront pages with Gatsby; Snipcart supplies the client-side cart and checkout flow. The repository is the demo app referenced in the article at https://aquasar.io/articles/building-an-ecommerce-site-with-gatsby-contentful-and-snipcart, so it is intended primarily as a learning tool for readers of that tutorial.
Key Features
The main value of the Gatsby Ecommerce Demo is the concrete integration pattern it shows between Gatsby, Contentful, and Snipcart.
- Gatsby static site generation — The storefront is built with Gatsby, so the output is a set of static HTML files that can be hosted on any static host.
- Contentful as the content backend — Product information and other site content are stored in Contentful and imported into the Gatsby site, allowing content updates without changing code.
- Snipcart commerce layer — Snipcart provides the shopping cart and checkout, so no backend ecommerce server is required.
- Tutorial-aligned codebase — The repository is the demo app used in the Aquasar article, so its structure reflects the steps of that publication.
- Public GitHub repository — The source code is publicly visible, letting developers inspect exactly how the three services are wired together.
Who is it for?
The Gatsby Ecommerce Demo is useful for anyone who wants to learn or replicate a static-site ecommerce architecture with a headless CMS and a third-party cart.
- Developers following the Aquasar tutorial — They use this repository as the matching codebase to understand each step of building an ecommerce site with Gatsby, Contentful, and Snipcart.
- Developers evaluating headless ecommerce approaches — They can inspect the repo to see how a headless CMS and a third-party cart can be combined with a static site generator.
- Developers learning Gatsby or Contentful — The demo offers a small, concrete example of how to source structured content from Contentful in a Gatsby site.
Use cases
Here are concrete ways the Gatsby Ecommerce Demo can be used.
- Learning reference: Review the code to see how Gatsby pulls content from Contentful and how Snipcart is configured on static pages.
- Starting point for a simple storefront: Use the repository as a base for a small ecommerce project, swapping in your own Contentful data and Snipcart credentials.
- Architecture example: Use the project to evaluate whether a static site plus Snipcart meets your commerce requirements before choosing a larger platform.
FAQ
What is the Gatsby Ecommerce Demo?
It is a demo ecommerce site built with Gatsby, Contentful, and Snipcart. Gatsby generates the static site, Contentful supplies the content, and Snipcart adds the cart and checkout. The repository accompanies the Aquasar article "Building an Ecommerce Site with Gatsby, Contentful and Snipcart."
What does this template do?
It demonstrates how to combine a static site generator, a headless CMS, and a third-party cart service. By following the companion article, you can see how the three services connect to produce a working ecommerce front end without a dedicated commerce backend.
Does it use Contentful?
Yes. Contentful is the content backend for the demo: product data and other content are managed there, and Gatsby pulls it in at build time to generate the store pages. Snipcart then handles the shopping cart and checkout on the client side.
