E-commerce, Marketplace · 2026
Zora African Market
Zora is a multi-surface marketplace that connects the African diaspora with authentic groceries and products from verified vendors. It spans a React Native (Expo) customer app, a Next.js marketing site with vendor onboarding, plus dedicated vendor and admin dashboards—all backed by Supabase (Postgres, auth, storage, realtime) and integrated payments (Stripe) and maps (Google Maps).
- Role
- Full-stack Engineer — Mobile, Web & Backend
- Duration
- 4 months
- Year
- 2026
- Type
- dev
Problem
Many diaspora customers struggle to buy authentic African groceries and specialty items from trustworthy vendors in one place. Sellers need onboarding, inventory, and operations tools; operators need moderation and platform controls. Building that as one coherent product usually means separate shops for mobile shoppers, marketing/onboarding on the web, and internal tools—without fragmenting data or identity.
Solution
Zora delivers a unified platform: customers shop on iOS/Android (Expo, biometric-friendly auth, cart sync, payments, discovery by region/vendor); zoraapp.co.uk explains the brand and supports vendor onboarding; vendor and admin Next.js apps handle day-to-day operations and governance. Shared TypeScript packages, Supabase for data/auth/storage/realtime, and Stripe for payments keep one backend story across surfaces. The result is a scalable marketplace slice—authentic catalogue, multi-vendor checkout narrative, UK-wide delivery positioning, and operational dashboards—rather than a single static storefront.