InstaCraft: A Lightweight CMS For Instagram‑Based Handicraft Businesses

Instagram is widely used by handicraft sellers be- cause it offers a visual showcase for their products. However, Instagram lacks a proper product catalogue and easy inventory tracking. This paper proposes InstaCraft, a simple web CMS built with the MERN stack (MongoDB, Express.js, React.js, Node.js). InstaCraft provides a responsive product catalogue, a basic admin interface for CRUD operations on products, and direct messaging links (WhatsApp click-to-chat and Instagram profile links). The frontend is designed for mobile devices, and images are optimised (resized, converted to WebP, lazy-loaded) to reduce load times. The paper includes TikZ diagrams of the system architecture and data flow, along with example REST API and schema code. Preliminary testing indicates that InstaCraft pages load approximately 30% faster than a raw Instagram feed displaying similar content. Feature tables compare In- staCraft, Instagram-only selling, and full e-commerce platforms. InstaCraft offers a practical middle ground: it requires less effort than a full online store while providing more organisation than Instagram alone.