Commerce infrastructure
A unified commerce platform — one admin screen replacing six
Regional merchants — especially those in markets where social commerce dwarfs web traffic — end up managing a storefront, an iOS app, an Android app and four social channels in parallel. Each platform has its own admin panel, its own inbox, and its own product catalogue. Our client wanted a single control layer that behaves like one dashboard while quietly keeping every channel in sync.
The challenge
Six admin panels for one business is not a workflow — it's a tax
A merchant selling a new SKU used to log into six systems and paste the same title, description, price and photo into each one. A customer asking about that SKU on WhatsApp did not show up in the same inbox as a customer asking on the storefront. When the merchant decided to rename a category, they did it six times. When they forgot one, one channel silently disagreed with the other five for weeks.
Meanwhile, mobile updates crawled through app-store review, so a bug fix that took two hours to write took three days to reach the customer.
What we built
One canonical catalog, many channel adapters, a merged inbox
The merchant edits one product; the platform is responsible for translating that product into whatever shape each channel expects. Messages, comments and orders from every channel land in one merged inbox that the merchant can answer without leaving. The mobile apps are shipped once and update themselves over-the-air, so a copy change lands the same afternoon it was written. Payments run through an escrow layer that holds funds until delivery is confirmed — protection for both sides in markets where trust is still being earned.
Canonical product model
One product record, N channel adapters. Renaming a category renames it everywhere.
Merged inbox
WhatsApp DM, Instagram comment, storefront chat and app message all in one queue with one reply.
One-click publishing
A new SKU or campaign propagates to every enabled channel in seconds, not in an afternoon.
OTA app updates
Interface and business-rule changes ship without an app-store review round.
Escrow-backed payments
Funds are held until the buyer confirms delivery; a refund is a click, not a support ticket.
Local shipping integrations
Regional couriers appear as first-class options at checkout, with tracking pushed into the same inbox.
Under the hood
Chosen so a bug fix can ship the same afternoon
- Multi-tenant SaaS
- REST + webhooks
- unified message router
- escrow payment gateway
- OTA update channel
The heart of the system is a canonical schema for products, orders and conversations; each channel is an adapter that translates in and out of that schema. That is what makes 'edit once, publish everywhere' more than a marketing line — it is the only shape the data ever takes internally.
Outcome
Six panels replaced by one, and a workday freed up
The merchants who adopted the platform stopped pasting the same product update into six admin panels. Direct messages became orders in the same queue as storefront checkouts. Bug fixes on the mobile apps stopped needing an app-store review to reach customers. The workday that used to be split between six tools is now spent on customers instead.
6 → 1
admin panels replaced by one merchant dashboard
OTA
mobile updates ship without an app-store review
1 inbox
for every message, comment and order across five channels
Selling through more channels than you can manage?
The right layer between your channels replaces admin work with customer work. Let's map yours.