A low-cost idea to automate your e-commerce platform with Payload CMS and Hermes Agent

The article demonstrates how to build a low-cost e-commerce platform using Payload CMS's e-commerce template, which provides auth, inventory management, cart, payment via Stripe, SEO, and page builder out-of-the-box. It then integrates Hermes Agent—a trending AI assistant connected via MCP—to automate platform operations like inventory updates, cart analysis, and marketing content creation. The motivation stems from Indonesian sellers migrating away from high-fee e-commerce platforms to self-hosted solutions.