Have you ever done mailto: abusement?

That's missing the point of databases though. Do you really want to manage all your orders via emails?

I've done a low tech store. Basically users browse products they like. They enter their phone and address to send it to as proof that they're actual buyers. The page caches their contact details so they can do the same on other items. If it's hard to imagine, it's in the cover image of this article: https://smuzani.medium.com/setting-up-a-mobile-backend-serve...

It goes into a database. We'd filter orders by phone number to form a "cart", and also filter out "delivered" statuses from their past order.

It was meant to be a MVP to see if people in one country would actually buy ingredients through a recipe app. Worked incredibly well - we were swamped with orders as soon as we allowed it.

It was around 85 items over 3 days, totalling around $750. We'd contact them via WhatsApp or SMS, request payment, verify payment, send the item, then verify it arrived. But we had the power of databases to sort that out. That stuff gets exponentially more complex the more orders and items you get.

But why would you avoid doing that to save on "database costs"? It's a lot harder when you can't really track who you contacted, who paid, who said they were going to pay but haven't paid, and so on. I'd have happily outsourced that process for a few cents.

Idk if you’re aware of this but in the 90s it was possible, and amateurs with personal websites used to do this a lot, to use a mailto: url as a form action. I forget the exact formatting browsers would use, but it would send the form fields in the email body. Obviously it only worked if you had a mail client configured, and I never saw a commercial website use it.

This may still work today, someone should try it.

> email for the customer to send

Send where, and what happens then, and how does all of it work with no database?

Three days later, customer wants to know what's happening with the order.

Can you describe all the use cases, and how they work without a database?

Why is this "abusement"?

You could run an online store with only a printer. Put your "database" of goods on paper, distribute it to potential customers, and they can fill out and FAX it back in.

Oh! The customers would also verify their e-mail address at the same time, by sending a message from it. But of course, to do any analytics, you'd have to parse the messages.

Yes.

But not in a store.

Be aware you might be sending personal information. And you'd be doing so unencrypted.

You could still use a static site by having a form that writes to a DB, or replace the DB with a plain text file if you'd like.

Cookies or login help for repeat customers should you desire to remember them and not have them re-enter stuff.

Would people put cc info in an email? I sure hope not!

And how would you send CC infos? In the clear via the mailto as well? D: