🧭 Plan & Database · Lesson 01

E-commerce App Project Overview

What you will build

In this course you build KartEasy, a complete shopping app like a small Flipkart or Meesho. It has three parts that you write yourself, line by line:

A MySQL database with 14 tables (users, products, cart, orders …).
A PHP REST API that the app calls, plus an admin panel where the shop owner adds products and ships orders.
A native Android app in Kotlin + XML with a modern Material 3 design.

Home, product detail and cart in the finished KartEasy app

The shop comes with real sample data — 16 products in 6 categories, 3 home banners and 2 coupons — so the app looks complete the first time you run it:

KartEasy sample product images — The 16 sample product images included in the download (uploads/products/)

Feature list

Area	Features
Account	Splash, onboarding, register, login, logout, edit profile, change password, dark mode
Browse	Home banners (auto-slide), categories, featured, top deals, new arrivals, search, 6 sort options, price filter, endless scrolling
Product	Image gallery, price / MRP / % off, stock warning, quantity, reviews, similar products, share
Buy	Wishlist, cart with − / +, swipe to remove + Undo, free-delivery progress, coupons, saved addresses, Cash on Delivery
After buying	Order success screen, notification, order list, tracking timeline, cancel, rate & review
Admin panel	Dashboard, orders + status, products with image upload, categories, banners, coupons, customers
Quality	Token login, hashed passwords, transactions (no overselling), CSRF, offline cache, tablet layouts, R8 release

How the parts talk to each other

The Android app never touches the database directly. It sends HTTP requests to the PHP API, the API checks everything (login, stock, prices) and talks to MySQL, then answers in JSON. The admin panel uses the same database from the browser.

Every screen follows this path

Example: tapping "Add to cart"

Inside the app we use the MVVM pattern so the code stays organised:

App layers from top (UI) to bottom (network)

Tech stack

Backend (server)

PHP 7.2+ (also PHP 8.x)
MySQL 5.7+ / MariaDB with PDO
Token login (Bearer), password_hash
Admin panel: PHP sessions + CSRF
Runs on Hostinger, cPanel, XAMPP

Android app

Kotlin 2.0, XML layouts, Material 3
ViewModel + StateFlow + Coroutines
Retrofit + Gson + OkHttp cache
Navigation component, Glide, DataStore
minSdk 26, targetSdk 35

No framework on the server: plain PHP is easy to host and easy to understand

Project folders

📁 KartEasy-Project/
  📁 backend/                    ← upload to hosting (public_html/karteasy)
    database.sql              tables + 16 sample products
    📁 includes/                 config.php, db.php, helpers.php, cart.php …
    📁 api/                      home.php, products.php, product.php …
      📁 auth/  cart/  wishlist/  address/  coupons/  orders/  reviews/
    📁 admin/                    admin panel (login, orders, products …)
    📁 uploads/                  product, category and banner images
  📁 android/KartEasy/           ← open in Android Studio
    📁 app/src/main/java/com/codingeasily/karteasy/
      📁 data/  api/ model/ repo/ session/
      📁 ui/    home/ product/ cart/ checkout/ orders/ account/ …
      📁 util/  notify/
    📁 app/src/main/res/         layouts, drawables, navigation, values

The download ZIP: one folder for the server, one for Android Studio

Download the complete project from the course page (button Download App + API Code). Every file shown in these lessons is exactly the file inside the ZIP.

Tools you need

1Android Studio (Ladybug or newer) — see the setup lesson
2PHP 7.2+ and MySQL: install XAMPP (Windows) or use the PHP / MySQL that comes with your OS
3A code editor for PHP (VS Code works well)
4Postman or Thunder Client to test the API (optional — we also test with curl)
5Later: hosting with PHP + MySQL (for example Hostinger) to put the API online

Install these before Lesson 3

📚 Before you start

You should know basic Android views, RecyclerView, fragments and Retrofit. All of these are taught in the free Android (Kotlin) course. For PHP basics see the PHP tutorial.

Course plan

We build the server first, so the app always has a real API to call

Demo logins

Where	Email	Password
Android app (customer)	test@karteasy.in	Test@123
Admin panel	admin@karteasy.in	Admin@123

⚠️ Change the admin password

These passwords are public because they are in this tutorial. Change the admin password before you put the backend online — the admin panel lesson shows how.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is this a real working app or only UI?

It is a full working project: a PHP + MySQL REST API with 27 endpoints, an admin panel, and a native Android app that uses every endpoint. The API was tested end to end on PHP 8.3 with MariaDB and checked for PHP 7.2 compatibility.

Can I run it without buying hosting?

Yes. Run the backend on your computer with XAMPP or "php -S 0.0.0.0:8000", and the Android emulator reaches it at http://10.0.2.2:8000/. Buy hosting only when you want to share the app.

Why Kotlin + XML and not Jetpack Compose?

XML layouts are still used in most existing Android apps and most college syllabi, and they make every view visible in the layout editor. Once you understand this project, moving to Compose is easy because the ViewModel, Retrofit and repository layers stay the same.

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