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How we engineered a marketplace platform for 400+ vendors in the Gulf region — with automated split payments, vendor self-service onboarding, real-time inventory sync, and full Arabic/English bilingual support.
E-Commerce · Multi-Vendor Marketplace
A Gulf-based retail conglomerate wanted to launch a regional marketplace — think Amazon-style multi-vendor platform, but tailored for the Saudi and UAE markets. The platform needed to support hundreds of independent vendors selling everything from electronics to fashion, with automated commission-based split payments, and a fully bilingual Arabic/English experience that went beyond simple text translation.
The existing plan was to use an off-the-shelf marketplace solution, but they quickly discovered that none of the available platforms handled Arabic RTL layouts properly, supported regional payment gateways (Tabby, Tamara for BNPL), or provided the vendor analytics dashboard they needed. They came to us to build it from scratch.
Every order could contain products from multiple vendors. The platform needed to automatically split payments — deducting marketplace commission, calculating VAT per vendor, and routing payouts to individual vendor bank accounts on different schedules.
Arabic isn't just right-to-left text — it requires mirrored layouts, different number formats, and culturally appropriate imagery. The entire UI needed to work natively in both directions, not just as a CSS flip.
Vendors managed inventory in spreadsheets, WhatsApp, and legacy POS systems. The platform needed real-time stock sync to prevent overselling — a common problem in the region where vendors sell on multiple channels simultaneously.
The client needed 400+ vendors onboarded within 3 months of launch. The onboarding flow had to handle commercial registration validation, bank account verification, product catalog upload, and shipping rate configuration — all self-service.
We built a modular marketplace architecture with dedicated microservices for payments, inventory, vendor management, and order orchestration. The split payment engine operates as an independent service that calculates commissions, VAT, and vendor payouts in real-time as orders are placed.
The RTL implementation was architecturally significant. We didn't just flip CSS — we built a bidirectional component system where every UI element (navigation, cards, forms, data tables) adapts its layout, spacing, and reading flow based on the active locale. Calendar components show Hijri dates in Arabic mode, currency formatting follows regional conventions, and even image carousels reverse direction.
Analyzed 15 regional competitors. Documented payment gateway requirements (Tabby, Tamara, Apple Pay). Designed the split payment engine and bilingual component system. Defined vendor onboarding flow.
Built the storefront with true RTL/LTR support, product catalog with Elasticsearch, and order management system. Implemented Stripe Connect for split payments with custom commission structures per vendor category.
Developed the self-service vendor onboarding portal, inventory management dashboard, and analytics suite. Built bulk product import tools and real-time stock sync to prevent overselling across channels.
Integrated Tabby and Tamara BNPL providers, Apple Pay, and regional card processors. Load-tested with simulated 10K concurrent users during flash sale scenarios. Soft launch with 50 vendors, then scaled to 400+.
Multi-vendor payment splitting is where most marketplace builds get stuck. The complexity isn't in sending money to vendors — it's in handling partial refunds across split orders, calculating per-vendor VAT correctly, managing different payout schedules, and reconciling everything for accounting. We treated the payment engine as an independent service with its own data store and audit trail.
True bilingual support is an architectural decision, not a translation task. Every component — from the navigation bar to the checkout flow — needs to be designed bidirectionally from the start. Retrofitting RTL onto an LTR codebase always produces a broken experience. We built a shared component library where directionality is a first-class prop, not a CSS override.
The vendor self-service onboarding was critical to hitting the 400-vendor target. We automated commercial registration verification against government APIs, built bank account validation workflows, and created guided product catalog upload with AI-assisted categorization. The result: vendors could go from signup to first sale in under 4 hours, with zero manual review needed for 85% of applications.
We engineer multi-vendor marketplaces, payment systems, and bilingual platforms for the MENA region and beyond. Let's talk about your platform.