This application is going to be huge. You may see it as your portfolio; it is an online book store where you can buy and sell books.

So we can’t just jump into coding it without planning everything from the get-go (Plan On Your Own — POYO).

For this reason, let’s divide this app into frontend and backend . We are going to use React basically for the frontend and Laravel for the backend.

But wait! I assume you have learnt HTML, CSS (Bootsrapt), javaScript, and PHP; if not, you may need to learn them before reading this article; www.w3schools.com and www.freecodecamp.org can get you started.

Yeah! Once you know the basic, let’s get started (Aja one gbera!).

Let’s install Laravel framework:

But before then, we need to download and install:

Git from www.git-scm.com
WampServer (3.1.0 and above — not bellow) from https://www.filehorse.com/download-wampserver-32/old-versions/ or www.wampserver.com — better still, google untill you find the required version.
Composer from www.getcomposer.org.
Once they are installed, you can sip a bottle of Zobo ( “herbal drink”) and relax.

No! No!No! I didn’t mean that because we still have to confirm whether they have been installed properly.

After installation, you should see Git (Git-bash) and Wampserver icons on your computer.

Sometimes when you work on an old windows OS, Wampserver may be missing MSVCR120 | MSVCR140 etc.; all you need to do in that case is to uninstall Wampserver, google to download and install the MSVCR(version) that is not on your computer; then install Wampserver again. Viola, you are good to go.

Now, let’s confirm whether composer installation was successful. You need to launch Git or Git bash on your computer; then, run: composer -v and you should get something similar to the image bellow if everything went fine.


a result from running: composer -v
Since everything is fine, it’s time we install Laravel installer by running the code bellow in our Git console.

//install laravel installer
composer global require "laravel/installer"
//confirm if it is successful
laravel -v
If it is successful, you should see:


result of a successful installation of laravel installer
Everything is fine. Let’s start our project:

//laravel new project-name
laravel new bookstore
Oops! Why always me? Why error! Why?

Oh! I get it. May be you did not select the latest version of PHPwhen you were installing Composer. If that is the case, Laravel 5.6 can’t work with PHP version bellow 7.1.3. Make sure you select the latest PHP version while installing Composer.

Let’s launch our Laravel app :

//Open our project
cd bookstore
//launch our project
php artisan serve
Yay! Check localhost:8000 in your browser, our bookstore application is up and running.

One more thing! React Installation.

As we are going to use Laravel with React, it is advantageous to make use of the React preset that is present in Laravel 5.5 and above. I am going to do this quickly as in:

//install the react preset in laravel
php artisan preset react
// compile the react fresh scaffolding
npm install && npm run dev
Everything should be fine after doing that. We have set up the backbones of our project. Yeah! It is time to celebrate. Don’t forget to send me a bottle of Zobo or clap | share bellow if this article is useful.

Wait! If you want to use Eeact alone ,without Laravel, check React documentation to see how to install it. Also, if you don’t know how to use Git, tell me in the comment section and your hills shall be made straight.

You can tell me your observation. Thanks for reading.

Power to your brain!



Check it here : https://medium.com/@ayobamiogundiran/how-to-build-an-online-book-store-with-react-and-laravel-part-1-b8e1007982e9