Retail & E-commerce
RawajA Unified Commerce Ecosystem
A headless commerce exploration that connects web store, mobile app, physical branches and marketplaces through one inventory and a seamless Arabic shopping experience.
01
The challenge
Today’s retailers sell through a web store, a mobile app, physical branches and marketplaces at once. Yet inventory often syncs between them only every few hours. The same item gets sold twice, customers receive an apology after paying, and trust erodes.
Monolithic platforms show their fragility at peak season (Ramadan, back-to-school, the big seasonal sales), when pages slow down or checkout falters at the most critical moment. Add to that weak Arabic search that does not realize “جوال”, “جوالات” and “موبايل” all mean the same thing.
The local market also expects a broad payment mix (mada, digital wallets, buy-now-pay-later and cash on delivery), plus multiple delivery carriers and compliant e-invoices. These usually pile up as scattered plugins that become painful to maintain.
02
Proposed solution
Rawaj is built on composable commerce: independent services for catalog, pricing and promotions, cart and checkout, order management and inventory availability. They communicate over APIs and events and serve every channel from a single source of truth.
At its heart, an availability service reserves stock the moment a shopper enters checkout and releases it when the hold expires, while the order management system picks the best fulfillment source: central warehouse, nearby branch, or click-and-collect. The storefront is Next.js with edge caching and incremental regeneration to keep product pages fast under load.
An Arabic search layer handles morphology, synonyms, misspellings and Arabizi, while a payment orchestration layer hides each gateway behind one interface. Adding a new payment method or delivery carrier becomes configuration, not a rewrite.
03
Design rationale
The experience is mobile-first because that is where most browsing happens: primary actions sit within thumb reach, checkout is a short sequence of clear steps, and address entry supports the Saudi National Address short code instead of exhausting free-text fields. Carousels and gestures mirror in RTL so browsing feels native.
Prices use tabular figures with the currency marker placed correctly in each language, and sale or low-stock badges never rely on color alone. Product-image crops and text overlays respect reading direction in both languages.
Performance is part of the design: a strict Core Web Vitals budget, automatically optimized imagery and lazy loading for anything off-screen. Dark and light themes keep product names and prices crisp.
04
Example architecture
An illustrative layering of the system, from the screens people use down to the infrastructure. A starting point we would validate during discovery, not a final design.
Layer 01
Experience
- Next.js storefront (ISR + edge caching)
- React Native shopping app
- Store-associate tablet app
- Seller & merchandising portal
Layer 02
Commerce services
- Catalog & PIM
- Pricing & promotions engine
- Cart & checkout
- Order management & fulfillment routing
- Inventory availability & reservations
Layer 03
Search & discovery
- OpenSearch with Arabic analyzers
- Synonym & Arabizi dictionaries
- Personalized recommendations
Layer 04
Integration
- Payment orchestration layer
- Delivery carrier adapters
- POS & ERP sync via Kafka events
- E-invoicing service
Layer 05
Data & infrastructure
- PostgreSQL per service
- Redis for carts & sessions
- Cloudflare CDN & image optimization
- Kubernetes autoscaling for peak seasons
05
Relevant technologies
Tools we would consider for this concept. They indicate engineering ecosystems, not partnerships or certifications.
- Next.js
- React Native
- TypeScript
- NestJS
- Go
- PostgreSQL
- OpenSearch
- Redis
- Apache Kafka
- Cloudflare
- Kubernetes
- Sentry
06
Key features
Real-time unified inventory
One balance per item across branches, warehouses and channels, with checkout holds that prevent double-selling.
Intelligent fulfillment
Ship from the nearest source, collect in store, or split an order across locations based on configurable rules.
Arabic search that understands shoppers
Accurate results despite word-form variation, spelling mistakes and Arabizi input.
Flexible promotions engine
Bundles, coupons and tiered pricing with transparent rules and a preview before going live.
Multi-method checkout
mada, digital wallets, installments and cash on delivery behind a single checkout interface.
Peak-season readiness
Autoscaling, pre-season load testing and edge-cached product pages.
07
Potential benefits
These are design goals the solution is built toward, not measured results.
Designed to minimize overselling and post-payment cancellations
A consistent shopping experience across web, app and branches
Greater stability during peak seasons
Faster onboarding of new channels, payment methods and carriers
Unified customer and order data to inform pricing and assortment
Related services & industry
Industry
Unified commerce platforms that connect online stores, apps, branches and fulfillment in one experience.
Services involved
Bilingual corporate sites, online stores and web platforms engineered for speed, security and scale.
Native and cross-platform iOS and Android apps with polished Arabic UX, steady performance and a clear path to launch.
REST and GraphQL APIs, payments, webhooks, and event-driven integrations that make separate systems work as one.
Secure, scalable cloud foundations, automated delivery pipelines and full observability on AWS, Azure and Google Cloud.
Reliable pipelines, governed warehouses, and executive dashboards that turn scattered data into decisions.
Research-led product design, from user journeys to production-ready design systems for complex enterprise interfaces.
This is a concept project created by AMA GROUP to demonstrate our approach. It is not a client engagement: the interface uses sample data, and no client, logo or result is implied.
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