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Dukkani

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.

Publisheddukkani.co

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

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.

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