Storing Delivery Fees and Store Settings in the Database Instead of Code with Next.js

The author argues that business-driven values such as delivery fees, free-delivery thresholds, and opening hours should not be hardcoded but kept in a database. They describe ramo.co.il, a Next.js garden-tools store, where settings live in a key/value table with a JSON column while secrets stay in environment variables. Reads are wrapped in a cached loader that converts raw data into typed objects and falls back to safe defaults if the database fails. Saving a setting through an admin screen triggers tag-based revalidation so changes take effect without a deployment. The approach also includes schema validation of values and an audit trail, with the server computing fees so the cart and checkout use the same source of truth.