A mobile-first commerce platform for Tunisia — enabling merchants to launch online stores, manage orders via Telegram, and sell without technical complexity. Think Shopify, but built for the Tunisian market.

Dukkani — The Shopify of Tunisia 🇹🇳

Overview

Dukkani is a mobile-first commerce platform built specifically for the Tunisian market.
The vision is simple but ambitious:

Build a local-first Shopify alternative that works with how Tunisian merchants already operate — fast onboarding, social commerce, messaging-based order management, and zero technical friction.

Merchants can:

Create their storefront
List products
Receive orders directly on Telegram
Manage orders from a dashboard
Sell without needing any technical knowledge

Vision

E-commerce platforms today are not designed for Tunisia’s reality.

Payment systems are fragmented
WhatsApp Business APIs are restricted and paid
Most merchants operate through Facebook / Instagram / messaging
Shopify is expensive and overkill for local small businesses

Dukkani’s vision:

Become the default commerce infrastructure for Tunisian merchants — simple, fast, mobile-first, and deeply integrated with local workflows.

Long-term, Dukkani aims to be:

The backbone for small businesses in Tunisia
A full-stack commerce platform (storefront, orders, delivery, payments, analytics)
A launchpad for the next generation of local digital businesses

How This Project Started

Dukkani started as an experiment between two friends:

Adam Nouira (co-founder, idea & early brainstorming)
Me (solo builder after MVP decision)

Phase 1 — The First Idea (Rejected)

The initial idea was to build a gym & coaching platform for Tunisia.
After early thinking and market reflection, it became clear:

Adoption would be low
Gyms are not digitally mature yet
Monetization would be very slow

So the idea was dropped.

Phase 2 — The Pivot

We pivoted to:

A Shopify-like platform for Tunisia

We identified competitors (Convert, Kick Tech Pro), but decided:

Even if it fails, the project will become a strong portfolio product
Best case: it becomes a real business
Worst case: I level up massively as an engineer

We set a rule:

Build an MVP in 2 weeks or kill the idea.

Phase 3 — Solo Execution

My co-founder couldn’t contribute code-wise, so I decided to:

Take full ownership
Use the project as a learning vehicle
Build a real production-grade system

This is where Dukkani became:

My monorepo learning project
My infra & deployment learning lab
My architecture stress test

Stack & Architecture

Dukkani is built as a modular monorepo with clear separation of concerns:

Core Apps

Dashboard (Web App)
Merchant admin interface (products, orders, settings)
Storefront (Web App)
Public merchant stores
API App (ORPC)
Dedicated API app hosted on Vercel with full typed endpoints + UI explorer
Telegram Bot
Merchants receive and manage orders directly on Telegram

Core Tech Stack

Next.js (App Router)
TypeScript
ORPC (similar to tRPC)
Prisma + PostgreSQL
Vercel (apps hosting)
Supabase Storage (soon migrating to Cloudflare R2)
Telegram Bot API
Monorepo architecture (multiple apps + shared packages)
CI with Lighthouse tests for performance & accessibility

Architecture Goals

Fully typed API layer
Shared domain logic between apps
Clean separation of concerns
Scalable infra for future growth

Product Scope

Dukkani is not just “a website builder”.
It’s a full commerce system:

Merchant Dashboard
Custom Storefront per merchant
Product management
Order management
Telegram integration
API explorer
Future: delivery, payments, analytics

Roadmap (High-Level)

Short-Term (0–2 months)

Finish core product flows (products, orders, editing, archiving)
Fix UX gaps discovered by real merchants
Mobile UX improvements
Localization (FR / AR)
Better image handling & compression
Error observability improvements

Mid-Term (3–6 months)

Delivery management
Customer experience improvements
AI-powered product descriptions
Better analytics
Merchant onboarding improvements

Long-Term

Payments integration
Logistics partnerships
Marketplace features
Growth tools for merchants
Full merchant operating system

Team & Contributors

Founder & Builder: Me
Co-founder (Idea & early discussions): Adam Nouira
Contributor / Hire: Skander Souissi

GitHub:

Adam Nouira — https://github.com/ademNr
Skander Souissi — https://github.com/SkandarS0

Current Status

Dukkani is:

Live in early beta
Used by real merchants
Actively under heavy development
Continuously iterated based on real user feedback

This case study will be updated as:

The product evolves
New features ship
More merchants onboard
The business side matures

Why This Project Matters (Personally)

Dukkani is:

My first serious product attempt
My biggest monorepo so far
My first platform with real users
My first time onboarding real merchants
My first step toward building a real startup

Even if Dukkani never becomes a business,
it already succeeded as:

A technical achievement
A learning accelerator
A proof that I can build full platforms end-to-end

This case study is a living document.
It will evolve with the product.