Supply Chain Flow

This page traces the complete lifecycle of a product from Brand creation to an end-customer purchase, covering every service interaction, event, and data transformation along the way.

End-to-End Flow

Step-by-Step Breakdown

Phase 1: Catalog Setup

Step	Service	Action
1	Brand	Brand creates/updates master catalog
2	Brand	Publishes new catalog version
3	Kafka	BrandCatalogUpdated event emitted
4	Supplier	Consumes event, imports catalog with Supplier pricing
5	Kafka	SupplierProductPublished event emitted
6	Retailer	Consumes event, adopts products with retail pricing

Phase 2: Order Placement

Step	Service	Action
7	Retailer	Customer submits order via storefront
8	Supply Chain	Creates order record, starts Saga
9	Payment	Creates Stripe PaymentIntent, authorises funds
10	Supplier	Redis lock acquired on inventory
11	Supply Chain	Confirms all steps succeeded

Phase 3: Payment and Fulfillment

Step	Service	Action
12	Payment	Captures payment from Stripe
13	Stripe Connect	Splits payment: Brand / Supplier / Retailer / Platform
14	Kafka	PaymentCaptured → OrderConfirmed emitted
15	Supplier	Begins production
16	Notification	"Order confirmed" email sent to customer
17	Supplier	Marks order dispatched, emits OrderDispatched
18	Notification	"Order dispatched" email with tracking sent to customer

Saga Pattern and Compensation

The Supply Chain Service orchestrates a Saga across multiple services. If any step fails, compensating actions are triggered:

Failure point	Compensation
Payment authorisation fails	Order cancelled, no inventory reserved
Inventory unavailable	Payment authorisation voided
Payment capture fails	Inventory lock released, order cancelled
Supplier rejects order	Payment refunded, order cancelled, customer notified

Compensation events follow the naming convention {Event}Compensated e.g. OrderPlacementCompensated.

Payment Split

Stripe Connect distributes the order value automatically at capture time:

Customer pays retail price
  ├── Retailer margin  = retail_price − supplier_price
  ├── Supplier amount  = supplier_price − brand_trade_price
  ├── Brand amount     = brand_trade_price
  └── Platform fee     = (configurable %, deducted from each party's transfer)

The exact percentages and amounts are recorded in the Payment Service ledger for each order.

Domain Routing During Order Processing

All service-to-service HTTP calls (where used) go through the internal Docker network by service name. The Nginx reverse proxy is only for external traffic. Service discovery uses Docker DNS: http://supply-chain:9000, http://payment:9000, etc.

Cross-service calls within the Saga use Laravel HTTP client with circuit breakers (via Guzzle retry middleware) and a standard timeout of 10 seconds.