Beauty & personal care · 2026
Online store and app for a beauty brand
A web store and mobile app for a skincare brand selling in several Gulf countries. Customers shop in Arabic or English, pay with local methods, find products through a short skin quiz, and track their orders; the team manages products, offers and stock from one dashboard.
Built by
- Client
- Withheld at the client’s request
- Markets
- Saudi Arabia · UAE · Kuwait
- Platforms
- Web · iOS · Android
- Typical timeline
- 3–4 months
- Squad
- 7 people · 6 disciplines
Technologies
- Next.js
- Flutter
- Laravel
- PostgreSQL
- Redis
- Meilisearch
- Mada
- Apple Pay
- Shipping APIs
- Firebase
- Docker
The product
10 images01
Brief
A beautiful brand on a slow, English-only store.
Context
The brand sold through Instagram and an off-the-shelf store, with most customers on phones in Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Problem
The store was slow on mobile, Arabic was an afterthought, local payment methods were missing, and customers didn’t know which product suited their skin.
Goals
- Arabic-first, fast on any phone
- Mada, Apple Pay and cards
- A guide to the right product
- One stock for web and app
02
Team
The squad behind it.
| Tech leadArchitecture, payments and multi-country setup | ×1 | Architecture, payments and multi-country setup | Senior | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Product designerBrand-led store design and the skin quiz | ×1 | Brand-led store design and the skin quiz | Senior | |
| Frontend engineerWeb store and admin dashboard | ×1 | Web store and admin dashboard | Senior | |
| Mobile engineerShopping app for iOS and Android | ×1 | Shopping app for iOS and Android | Senior | |
| Backend engineerCatalogue, cart, orders, payments and shipping | ×1 | Catalogue, cart, orders, payments and shipping | Senior | |
| DevOps engineerHosting, CDN and sale-day readiness | ×1 | Hosting, CDN and sale-day readiness | Senior | |
| QA engineerCheckout tests on web and devices | ×1 | Checkout tests on web and devices | Senior |
03
UI/UX design
The brand’s calm, in both directions.
Who worked on it
We designed the store in Arabic first, then English, with product photography leading every page. A five-question skin quiz recommends a routine, and checkout fits on one screen.
- Arabic firstTypography and layout designed for Arabic.
- Skin quizA routine, not just a product.
- One-screen checkoutAddress, delivery and payment together.
04
Frontend
Fast on a phone, even on sale day.
Who worked on it
The web store renders on the server and caches product pages at the edge, so it opens quickly on mobile data. The team edits products, bundles, offers and banners in both languages from the same dashboard.
- Server-rendered pagesGood for speed and for search engines.
- Bundles and offersSet up without a developer.
- SEO in two languagesArabic and English pages indexed separately.
05
Mobile
The app for customers who come back.
Who worked on it
The app adds what returning customers want: one-tap reorder of their routine, saved addresses and cards, order tracking, and alerts when a favourite product is back in stock.
- Reorder the routineOne tap, same products.
- Apple Pay and MadaNative payment sheets.
- Back-in-stock alertsFor favourite products.
06
Backend & architecture
One catalogue, several countries.
Who worked on it
One backend serves the web store and the app. Prices, currencies, taxes and shipping options are set per country, stock is reserved at checkout, and an order is released to the warehouse only after the payment gateway confirms it.
Decision 1
Prices and tax set per country
Each market has its own currency and VAT rules.
Trade-off · Every product needs a price for each market.
Decision 2
Stock reserved at checkout, released on timeout
Popular items mustn’t be oversold during a sale.
Trade-off · Abandoned checkouts hold stock for a few minutes.
Decision 3
Orders released only on the payment webhook
A closed browser must not mean a lost or unpaid order.
Trade-off · Order confirmation can lag by a few seconds.
07
DevOps
Ready for the big sale nights.
Who worked on it
Before big sale seasons, traffic is load-tested and the platform scales up ahead of time. Images are served through a CDN, and dashboards show orders, payment failures and stock in real time.
- Load-testedBefore every big campaign.
- Image CDNResized per device automatically.
- Payment alertsA spike in failures alerts the team.
08
QA
Checkout tested with every payment method.
Who worked on it
Automated tests place orders on web and app with cards, Mada and Apple Pay in sandbox mode, in every country and both languages. Layout checks catch broken Arabic screens before customers do.
- Sandbox paymentsEvery method, every market.
- RTL layout checksScreenshots compared on each change.
- Real devicesPopular phones in the Gulf.
Tell us what you’re building.
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