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E-CommercePOS & InventoryRetail OperationsOman

Taking a 14-Branch Omani Food Distributor From Counter to Online

Client: SQT Mart — the online grocery and food-delivery platform of Salim Qatan Trading Co. LLC, a Salalah-based frozen and dry-food distributor operating since 1999. BixoSoft worked on the connected e-commerce, point-of-sale and multi-branch inventory ecosystem that brings this established distribution business online.

1999
Heritage of the parent business — from a Salalah hypermarket to a nationwide distributor
14
Branches across Oman behind the platform's distribution network
2
Languages — full English & Arabic customer experience
1× – 48×
Pack configurations per product, from single units to bulk cartons
The Challenge
A long-established distributor with 14 branches, delivery vehicles and decades of walk-in trade — but no digital channel connecting customers, counters and stock. Going online couldn't mean bolting a webshop onto the side. Online orders, branch POS sales and multi-branch inventory had to work as one operation — across frozen and dry goods, retail units and bulk cartons, households and food-service buyers, in English and Arabic.
The Solution
A connected retail ecosystem: bilingual e-commerce with retail and bulk pack purchasing, branch-aware order fulfilment, and point-of-sale and inventory workflows tied to the same operation. Customers order single units or 48-piece cartons online; orders route to the business unit serving their area; and physical and digital sales operate against the branch-level stock picture — not separate systems.

The Challenge

Digitizing a real distribution business is nothing like launching an online store from zero.

Salim Qatan Trading didn't need help finding products or customers — it had been distributing frozen and dry food across the Sultanate since 1999, with physical branches, warehousing, a vehicle fleet and existing retail and wholesale trade. What it needed was a digital layer that respects how the business actually operates.

That raises problems ordinary e-commerce never faces. The same product sells as one piece to a household and as a 24-piece carton to a restaurant — often at different effective prices — so a carton and a unit can't be treated as unrelated products without corrupting stock counts. Availability differs by location: an item in Salalah may be out of stock elsewhere, so an online order must be routed to a branch that can actually serve that customer's area. And every branch also sells over the counter, which means a walk-in customer and an online customer can be competing for the same final unit at the same moment.

Add the realities of the product itself — frozen chicken, beef and vegetables that demand cold-chain handling and tight delivery windows alongside rice bags, oils and canned goods — plus a bilingual Arabic/English customer base and payment habits that span online cards and cash or card on delivery, and the scope becomes clear: this is retail-operations software with a storefront on top, not a website with a warehouse behind it.

What the Platform Delivers

Three connected layers — customer commerce, order operations, and POS & inventory — serving one multi-branch business.

Bilingual E-Commerce Storefront

A full grocery shopping experience on web and mobile, in English and Arabic, priced in Omani rial.

  • Catalogue across frozen chicken, beef and mutton, frozen vegetables, eggs, oils and ghee, pulses, rice, spices, beverages and household essentials
  • Search, categories, offers, top sellers, trending and top-rated product sections
  • Wishlist, ratings, promotional banners and gift campaigns
  • Customer accounts with Google sign-in and Oman phone-number registration

Retail & Bulk Pack Purchasing

The catalogue speaks both B2C and B2B — the same product, many ways to buy it.

  • Pack configurations from 1× single units up to 4×, 6×, 12×, 24× and 48× cartons
  • Bulk formats for food-service buyers: 18–20 kg meat packs, 20–35 kg rice bags, 20-litre oil containers, 50 kg sugar bags
  • Unit-specific and pack-specific pricing — a carton is not just the unit price multiplied
  • One catalogue serving households, restaurants, cafeterias, small shops and caterers

Ordering & Branch-Aware Fulfilment

Orders don't go to "the warehouse" — they go to the business unit that serves the customer.

  • Address management with map search, street, building, floor and Home/Office/Other labels
  • Order routing to the relevant branch or business unit for the customer's area
  • Delivery-charge calculation per order, with free-delivery promotions (e.g. orders over 20 OMR)
  • Order tracking, order history and one-tap reordering of a previous order

POS & Multi-Branch Inventory

The operational core: physical and digital sales working against one stock picture.

  • Point-of-sale workflows for walk-in branch sales alongside online orders
  • Branch-specific stock — availability, deduction and returns tracked per location
  • Unit-and-carton conversion handled against a consistent base quantity, so opening a carton to sell single pieces never corrupts stock
  • Shared inventory between counter and online channels to prevent the same last unit selling twice

Payments & Customer Care

Payment options matched to how Oman actually buys groceries.

  • Online debit and credit-card payment at checkout
  • Cash on delivery and card on delivery for customers who prefer to pay at the door
  • Refund policies built in: full refunds for undelivered or incorrect orders, partial refunds for missing items
  • Customer support via chat and hotline, with complaint and feedback forms

Mobile Apps

The storefront in customers' pockets.

  • SQT Mart iOS app live on the App Store for iPhone and iPad
  • English and Arabic app experiences mirroring the web platform
  • Android and mobile-web ordering channels alongside iOS
  • Location-based delivery and account management on the go

One Order, One Operation

The platform's value is the chain connecting a customer's tap to a branch's freezer:

Customer selects location, products and pack size (unit or carton) delivery charges calculated and payment method chosen — card online, or cash/card on delivery order routed to the branch or business unit serving that area branch stock checked, order picked and packed dispatched through the company's own distribution fleet customer tracks status through to the door

Meanwhile the same branches keep selling over the counter — and both channels draw from the same branch-level inventory, which is precisely the problem most "webshop" projects never solve.

The Hard Problems of Physical + Digital Retail

SQT Mart's real engineering challenges live where the webshop meets the shop floor.

The Results

A 25-year-old distribution business, trading online — without splitting into two disconnected operations.

Live

The distributor's full catalogue is online

SQT Mart operates as a populated, bilingual e-commerce platform with OMR pricing, pack-size selection, offers and delivery across Oman — on the web and through the iOS app.

B2C + B2B

One platform serves households and food-service buyers

The same catalogue sells a single pack of chicken to a family and a 48-piece carton or 50 kg sugar bag to a restaurant — with pricing structures built for both.

Connected

Online orders and branch operations run as one business

Orders route to the branch serving the customer's area and fulfilment flows through the company's existing branches and vehicle fleet — the digital channel strengthens the physical network instead of bypassing it.

Retail-ops

Proof that BixoSoft builds operational retail, not just storefronts

E-commerce, POS and multi-branch inventory in one connected scope — the experience BixoSoft now applies to other Gulf businesses modernising branch-based operations.

Key Takeaway

Putting products on a webpage is easy. SQT Mart is the harder thing: online orders, POS counters, carton-and-unit stock and 14 branches behaving as one operation — software shaped around how a real distribution business runs every day.

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