We built Zeed as a full-stack social commerce marketplace combining shoppable social feeds, live video selling, and zero-code seller storefronts. Flutter and Firebase deliver real-time social interactions, while AWS IVS powers sub-3-second live streams. Zeed is currently in closed beta, with invite-only access for early adopters ahead of a full public launch.
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App Downloads
0.0/5
App Store Rating
Duration
6 Months
Team Size
7 Members
Platform
iOS & Android
Shop, Sell, and Connect. A social commerce platform giving Saudi entrepreneurs their first online store, powered by live selling that converts 30% better than static listings. Currently in closed beta.
Saudi entrepreneurs, including home-based businesses, artisans, and small-batch makers, were running their entire sales operation through Instagram DMs and WhatsApp groups. They had audiences but no reliable way to showcase products, take orders, or get paid professionally. Buyers on the other side had no way to discover these sellers outside their own social networks. Zeed saw an opportunity to formalize this informal market with a platform that preserved the social nature of buying from people, while adding the reliability of a managed marketplace.
6 Months transformation from concept to launch
Critical obstacles that required innovative solutions and creative problem-solving.
Live selling only converts when buyers can see, comment, and purchase with near-zero delay. Standard video streaming protocols introduce 20-30 seconds of latency — fatal for the real-time social proof that makes live commerce work. AWS IVS reduced latency to under 3 seconds, but required custom Flutter integration and stream health monitoring.
Buyers have no prior relationship with Zeed sellers — most are individuals with no brand recognition. Building a reputation system that credibly communicated seller trustworthiness through reviews, verified badges, and fulfillment track records was critical to overcoming the buyer hesitation that kills new marketplace launches.
Saudi buyers have fragmented payment preferences — credit cards, MADA debit, SADAD bills, and Apple Pay each have significant market share. Supporting all four without adding checkout friction required payment gateway abstraction and thorough testing across each method's failure modes and 3D Secure flows.
Reaching 5,000 active sellers required onboarding flows so simple that first-time e-commerce users could launch a store without support. Reducing time-to-first-listing to under 10 minutes meant eliminating every non-essential step, adding intelligent defaults, and building contextual in-app guidance that replaced a traditional help center.
We built Zeed on Flutter for a single high-performance codebase across iOS and Android, with Firebase Firestore powering the real-time social feed, live chat, and seller notifications at consumer scale. AWS IVS delivers the sub-3-second live stream latency that makes in-stream purchasing viable, with a custom Flutter SDK integration and stream health monitoring to handle degraded connections gracefully. A Node.js commerce API manages the full seller lifecycle, from product listing to payout settlement, while PostgreSQL tracks seller reputation through a review and fulfillment scoring system that builds buyer trust in an unknown marketplace.
Instagram-style scrollable feed combining product listings, seller stories, and shoppable content in a single unified stream. Social signals — likes, shares, comments, and follower counts — surface trending products and trusted sellers, making discovery feel organic rather than algorithmic.
In-app live video selling powered by AWS IVS for sub-3-second latency streams. Sellers showcase products in real time, answer buyer questions via live chat, and trigger limited-time offers that viewers can purchase without leaving the stream. Live sessions achieve 30% higher conversion than static listings.
Customizable branded storefronts for every seller — cover photos, bio, product collections, and featured items. Seller reputation scores, verified badges, and review histories build buyer trust in a marketplace of unknown individual sellers. Zero-code setup allows non-technical entrepreneurs to launch in under 10 minutes.
One-tap checkout with saved payment methods, SADAD and card support, and digital receipts. Automated seller payout settlement (T+2 after delivery confirmation) with clear fee breakdown and earnings dashboard — giving entrepreneurs the financial transparency needed to build a sustainable business.
How this project created lasting value across multiple dimensions.
5,000+ entrepreneurs launched their first online store on Zeed with no technical knowledge required. The 10-minute store setup — versus weeks needed to configure traditional e-commerce platforms — democratized selling for Saudi home-based businesses, freelancers, and small-batch makers who previously relied on Instagram DMs.
Live selling sessions achieve 30% higher conversion than static product listings because buyers see products in context, get real-time questions answered, and experience the social proof of other viewers purchasing. Zeed brought live commerce — a $60B global format — to the Saudi market before any local competitor.
Firebase Firestore powers real-time social feed updates and live chat for thousands of concurrent live streams without server polling, while AWS IVS delivers sub-3-second stream latency globally. The Flutter codebase achieves App Store parity with native iOS performance — critical for the live selling experience where lag destroys conversion.
The technologies and tools powering this solution.
Flutter
Dart
Firebase
Node.js
PostgreSQL
AWS
Measurable outcomes that demonstrate the value delivered.
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