Why should you care?

Flipkart-style commerce needs normalized catalog plus transactional orders — EF Core Code First expresses that schema in C# migrations.

See it live — copy this example

Paste into a .NET project with EF Core packages, then run with LocalDB/SQL Server (dotnet ef / dotnet run).

public class Product { public int Id { get; set; } public string Name { get; set; } = ""; public decimal Price { get; set; } public int StockQty { get; set; } }
public class Customer { public int Id { get; set; } public string Email { get; set; } = ""; }
public class Order { public int Id { get; set; } public int CustomerId { get; set; } public Customer Customer { get; set; } = null!; public ICollection<OrderItem> Items { get; set; } = new List<OrderItem>(); }

var top = await db.Products.OrderByDescending(p => p.Price).Take(5).AsNoTracking().ToListAsync();
var revenue = await db.OrderItems.SumAsync(i => i.Quantity * i.UnitPrice);

What happened?

• Core entities cover catalog and sales.
• First query lists premium products.
• Second aggregates GMV from line items — typical e-commerce read patterns.

Practice next

1. Create ShopNest.Domain entities Product, Customer, Order, OrderItem.
2. Configure relationships in ShopNestDbContext Fluent API.
3. Run InitialShopNest migration and seed categories.
4. Add Cart and CartItem entities for session persistence.
5. Query customers who never ordered with GroupJoin DefaultIfEmpty.

Remember

E-commerce schema centers Product and Order graphs. Snapshot line prices on OrderItem. Inventory column supports stock checks.

ShopNest MVP schema

Startup launches ShopNest.Data with four core entities and browse plus revenue queries.

Outcome: MVP catalog and checkout backed by one normalized SQL Server database.