Arabic multi-vendor marketplace with per-seller courier labels

The challenge

An Egyptian business runs an Arabic-language marketplace where many sellers list products side by side. It used our multi-seller extension with a popular premium theme, but the marketplace had its own rules that a standard set-up did not cover: sellers needed to offer an item that already existed in the catalogue rather than duplicating it, products had to sit under the right parent categories, and returns had to follow a fixed window after an order was completed.

Shipping was the larger problem. A single customer order can contain items from several sellers, each shipping separately from its own location. The store's courier module only understood one shipper per order, so sellers could not produce their own labels or follow their own shipments.

What we did

• Set-up. We installed and configured our multi-seller extension on the store's hosting after purchase.
• Seller listing flow. We added a "sell yours" link so sellers can list against an existing product, parent-category selection for new products, and custom category rules.
• Returns and stock. The return button now appears only within 14 days of an order being completed, and out-of-stock products can be hidden from the storefront.
• Cart page. We redesigned the cart to show product images and seller names, with the page reloading automatically when an item is removed.
• Per-seller courier labels. We adapted the store's Aramex shipping module to work with the multi-seller layer: labels are generated per seller within a multi-seller order, sellers print their own labels, and shipments can be tracked by the admin, the seller and the customer. Labels are saved on the server.
• Fixes and upgrades. We resolved zero-price products, order history, return-flow and seller add-product errors, kept our customisations compatible through theme upgrades, and later fixed label links, label printing from the new-orders tab and order display after a module reinstall.

Tech stack

PHP, MySQL, OpenCart, Journal theme, Aramex shipping API