The problem
A Shopify theme built for a left-to-right, English, USD store breaks in subtle and not-so-subtle ways when you drop it into the GCC. Arabic is right-to-left, so layouts mirror. Shoppers expect to switch between Arabic and English. Checkout needs regional payment methods and multi-currency, and shipping has to understand GCC zones — not a generic flat rate.
These home and lifestyle brands needed storefronts that felt native to UAE shoppers, not a translated afterthought.
What I built
- RTL + bilingual theme architecture — Arabic / English with proper right-to-left mirroring, not just swapped strings. Layout, navigation, and typography all flip correctly.
- Custom checkout UX tuned for regional payment expectations and multi-currency.
- Theme App Extensions for storefront features that survive theme updates instead of being hard-forked into Liquid.
- Shipping-zone tuning for GCC logistics, so rates and delivery options match how goods actually move in the region.
- Klaviyo wired in for lifecycle marketing.
How it works
The stores run on Shopify Plus with custom Liquid themes engineered RTL-first — direction-aware layout primitives so the same components render correctly in both Arabic and English rather than maintaining two parallel themes. Storefront functionality is delivered through Theme App Extensions so brand customizations keep working across theme upgrades.
Multi-currency and regional payment integrations live at the checkout layer, and shipping zones are configured around GCC delivery realities.
The result
Localized Shopify Plus storefronts that read as native to UAE shoppers — bilingual, RTL-correct, with checkout and shipping tuned for GCC commerce rather than retrofitted from a Western template.