How do the branded subdomain storefronts work?

Each brand on the platform gets a custom subdomain (e.g., gucci.brands.online) that serves as their own branded storefront. The subdomain renders the brand's products, logo, colour scheme, and content while sharing the underlying marketplace infrastructure for orders, payments, and inventory. Cross-domain authentication ensures customers can browse multiple brand storefronts without re-authenticating. This gives brands the feel of an independent store while benefiting from shared marketplace traffic.

What is the biometric avatar sizing system?

The biometric sizing system allows customers to input their body measurements and generates a virtual avatar showing how garments will fit. It supports four categories: Ladies, Gentlemen, Kids, Babies, and Pets. Rather than relying on generic S/M/L sizing, customers see a visual representation of fit based on actual garment dimensions mapped against their measurements. This reduces return rates by helping customers choose the right size before purchasing.

How does the B2B wholesale ordering system differ from the consumer marketplace?

B2B wholesale buyers (Traders) see different pricing tiers based on quantity breaks, can place bulk orders across multiple brands, and have access to wholesale-only product lines. Their dashboard shows order history, reorder shortcuts, and credit terms. The system supports quantity-based pricing where unit cost decreases with volume. Brands manage their wholesale catalogue separately from their consumer catalogue, with different margins and minimum order quantities.

How does the multi-warehouse inventory system handle stock transfers?

The platform supports multiple warehouse locations per brand. Each warehouse maintains independent stock counts. When stock needs to move between warehouses, a transfer request is created with quantities and reason. The transfer goes through an approval workflow and is tracked with full audit logging - who initiated it, who approved it, when stock left the origin warehouse, and when it arrived at the destination. This prevents inventory discrepancies and provides accountability for every stock movement.

Building a Multi-Vendor Fashion Marketplace with ERP and Biometric Sizing

Brands.online set out to build something ambitious: a fashion marketplace that connects brands directly with consumers and wholesale traders across Europe, while giving each brand its own branded storefront on a custom subdomain. This was not a simple multi-vendor shop. It was five interconnected systems that needed to work as one - consumer marketplace, branded storefronts, B2B wholesale ordering, multi-warehouse inventory management, and biometric avatar sizing.

The vision was clear: create a platform where a fashion brand could sign up, get their own subdomain storefront, sell to consumers and wholesalers, manage inventory across multiple warehouses, track production through delivery, and let customers virtually try on clothes using biometric data. Building each of these capabilities individually would be a significant project. Building them as a unified platform required enterprise-grade architecture and meticulous planning.

Project: brands.online

The Challenge

The core challenge was managing complexity without sacrificing usability. Five distinct user roles needed to coexist on the same platform, each with fundamentally different workflows and permissions. The data model had to support multi-tenancy (each brand's data isolated from others), cross-domain authentication (users moving between brand storefronts), and real-time inventory synchronisation across warehouses.

The five interconnected systems we needed to build:

Consumer Marketplace: Product discovery, search, filtering, wishlists, cart, checkout, and order tracking for end consumers
Branded Subdomain Storefronts: Each brand gets [brand].brands.online with their own branding, product catalogue, and content
B2B Wholesale Ordering: Quantity-based pricing, bulk orders, minimum order quantities, and wholesale-only product lines for retail traders
Multi-Warehouse Inventory: Independent stock counts per warehouse, audited stock transfers, and real-time synchronisation
Biometric Avatar Sizing: Virtual try-on system supporting Ladies, Gentlemen, Kids, Babies, and Pets categories

Five user roles with distinct permissions and workflows:

Admin: Platform-wide management, brand onboarding, dispute resolution, and system configuration
Brand: Product catalogue management, storefront customisation, order fulfilment, and wholesale pricing
Brand Employee: Limited brand access for team members handling day-to-day operations
Trader: B2B wholesale buyers with access to quantity pricing, bulk ordering, and trade accounts
Customer: Consumer marketplace experience with wishlists, order history, and biometric sizing

Our Solution

We architected the platform as an enterprise multi-tenant system using React, TypeScript, and Supabase, with over 30 Edge Functions handling business logic at the edge. The multi-tenant architecture ensures each brand's data is isolated while sharing the underlying infrastructure for authentication, payments, and platform features.

Subdomain Storefronts

Each brand receives a custom subdomain ([brand].brands.online) that renders their products, branding, and content. The subdomain system uses dynamic routing to resolve the brand from the URL and serve the appropriate storefront configuration. Brands customise their logo, colour palette, featured collections, and landing page layout through their dashboard. Customers browsing a brand's subdomain see a fully branded experience, but the underlying cart, checkout, and authentication systems are shared across the platform. Cross-domain authentication means a customer who logs in on one subdomain stays authenticated when visiting another.

B2B Wholesale System

The wholesale system operates as a parallel commerce layer. Traders see different product views with quantity-based pricing tiers. Brands configure wholesale pricing separately from consumer pricing, with minimum order quantities and volume discounts. A Trader can place a bulk order spanning multiple product lines, and the system calculates tiered pricing automatically. Wholesale orders have their own fulfilment workflow, with packing lists optimised for bulk shipments rather than individual consumer orders.

Biometric Avatar Sizing

The biometric sizing system is one of the platform's most distinctive features. Customers enter their body measurements, and the system generates a virtual avatar showing how specific garments will fit their body type. The system supports five categories - Ladies, Gentlemen, Kids, Babies, and Pets - each with measurement sets appropriate to their category. Garment dimensions are mapped against the customer's measurements to predict fit, with visual indicators for areas that may be tight or loose. This feature directly addresses one of fashion e-commerce's biggest pain points: the high return rate caused by sizing uncertainty.

Multi-Warehouse Inventory and ERP

Brands with multiple offices or warehouses can manage independent stock levels for each location. The inventory system tracks stock counts per warehouse, with real-time synchronisation to prevent overselling. When stock needs to move between locations, a transfer request initiates an audited workflow: the request is created with quantities and justification, approved by the appropriate role, and tracked from origin departure to destination arrival. Every transfer is logged with full accountability.

The ERP layer tracks the entire product lifecycle from production to delivery. Brands can log production batches, assign stock to warehouses, track orders through fulfilment, and monitor delivery status. This gives brands complete visibility into their supply chain within a single platform rather than juggling spreadsheets and separate logistics tools.

Edge Functions Architecture

With over 30 Supabase Edge Functions, the platform's business logic runs at the edge for low-latency operations. Edge Functions handle pricing calculations, inventory checks, stock transfer approvals, subdomain resolution, webhook processing, email notifications, and analytics aggregation. This architecture keeps the frontend lean while ensuring complex business rules are enforced server-side where they cannot be bypassed.

The Results

Brands.online launched as a fully integrated fashion marketplace that serves brands, consumers, and wholesale traders from a single platform. The scope of what was delivered represents the equivalent of building five separate applications - unified under one architecture.

Custom subdomain storefronts give each brand an independent presence while sharing platform infrastructure
B2B wholesale ordering with quantity-based pricing opened a second revenue channel for every brand
Biometric avatar sizing reduces return rates by helping customers choose the right size before purchasing
ERP production-to-delivery tracking gives brands full supply chain visibility within the platform
Multi-warehouse stock transfers with full audit logging ensure inventory accuracy across locations
5 user roles with tailored dashboards serve the needs of admins, brands, employees, traders, and customers
30+ Edge Functions enforce business logic at the edge for performance and security

Technology Stack

Technology	Purpose
React + TypeScript	Type-safe frontend with multi-tenant component architecture
Supabase	Multi-tenant database, auth, storage, and Edge Functions runtime
Multi-Tenant Architecture	Data isolation per brand with shared infrastructure
Biometric Sizing Engine	Virtual avatar generation with garment fit prediction
B2B Ordering System	Quantity-based pricing, bulk orders, and wholesale catalogues
30+ Edge Functions	Server-side business logic for pricing, inventory, and workflows
Cross-Domain Auth	Seamless authentication across brand subdomains

The architectural decision to use Supabase Edge Functions as the business logic layer was critical. With five distinct user roles, multi-tenant data isolation, real-time inventory synchronisation, and cross-domain authentication all in play, keeping complex logic on the server ensures consistency and security. The frontend remains fast and focused on presentation, while Edge Functions handle the heavy lifting of pricing calculations, permission checks, and workflow orchestration.