Curio Market case study

Confidential (ecommerce marketplace) · Ecommerce

A personalised multi-seller ecommerce marketplace. Automated payouts and delivery tracking cut support requests by 70%.

Client project, name changed on request

Payouts and tracking run themselves, so support stops repeating them.

The two paths that created the most manual work, seller payouts and delivery tracking, are automated end to end with Stripe Connect and DHL webhooks, with status shown directly in the order view. Support requests fell by 70%. Tenant isolation is written once, at the database, instead of in every screen.

What keeps it lean

01Payouts and tracking automated end to end
02Status shown where people already look
03Isolation enforced once, at the database

Caching, batching and reuse instead of regenerating the same work.

The challenge

Most ecommerce shows every shopper the same feed, burying them in options that do not match their taste. Sellers got basic tools with no clear view of orders or payouts, and manual payment handling plus opaque delivery meant the support inbox filled with the same two questions. The marketplace needed to feel personal to shoppers and run itself for sellers.

The work

We sat with the support queue first, then built: a server-rendered recommendation engine driven by an eight-question taste quiz, a multi-tenant Supabase architecture with seller isolation enforced at the database, and the two paths that caused most of the work, seller payouts and delivery tracking, automated end to end with Stripe Connect and DHL webhooks, with status shown directly in the order view.

Inside the product

More than one screen.

The product name and data have been changed at the client's request; these screens recreate Curio Market as it was built.

Taste quiz

Eight questions turn a shopper’s taste into a personal feed.

Personalised marketplace

Products from many sellers ranked by match and filtered by mood.

Seller dashboard

Orders with DHL tracking and scheduled Stripe Connect payouts.

On the phone

Home

Taste quiz

Personalised marketplace

Seller dashboard

How it is built

Architecture

Next.js App Router, server-rendering the recommendation surfaces. Supabase provides multi-tenant storage with row-level security per seller. Stripe Connect handles split payments and payouts; DHL webhooks drive tracking.

Key features

Personality test driving product recommendations

Multi-seller marketplace in one shopping experience

Seller dashboard for products, orders and payouts

Stripe payments with automated seller payouts

DHL integration for automated delivery tracking

Challenges & solutions

Challenge

Multi-tenancy risked one seller’s queries reaching another seller’s data.

Solution

Enforced isolation with row-level security policies at the database rather than in application code, so a missed check in the app cannot leak data.

Challenge

Manual payout and shipping enquiries dominated the support queue.

Solution

Automated both paths, using Stripe Connect for scheduled payouts and DHL webhooks for tracking, then surfaced status directly in the order view.

The impact

What became easier, better or more effective.

Curio Market went from a generic storefront to a marketplace that learns what each shopper likes and gets out of the way at checkout. Sellers are paid on schedule and can see it, parcels track themselves, and the support inbox went quiet. The client’s own team runs the platform today.

The learning

Handover was treated as part of the build. The operations team was walked through how payouts, tracking and tenant isolation work and why they were built that way, thoroughly enough that they now run the marketplace without us.

“They sat with our support queue before writing a line of code, so what they built fixed the real problems, not the ones in the brief. Handover was thorough enough that our own team runs it now.”

Head of operations · Ecommerce marketplace

40%

increase in shopper engagement

An eight-question taste quiz turns a generic feed into a personal one, so returning shoppers find things they actually want.

70%

fewer support tickets

Automated payouts and tracking removed the two questions that filled the inbox, and the answers now sit in the order view where people already look.

checkout across every seller

Shoppers pay once; Stripe Connect splits the payment and settles each seller on schedule, with nobody moving money by hand.

Stack