Souk 🧺

Souk is a multilingual Canadian marketplace helping multicultural vendors sell culture-rich products online with dignity, visibility, and support.

The MVP starts as a curated, admin-managed pilot for 5 to 10 multicultural makers and small vendors in one local or community partner cohort.

Overview

Souk is a community-first marketplace built for multicultural vendors, makers, artists, newcomer entrepreneurs, and small businesses in Canada.

The goal is simple: help vendors showcase products, tell their stories, connect with customers, and grow online without having to build a full e-commerce store from scratch.

Screenshots

Marketplace home	Product browsing

Vendor discovery	Vendor profile

Vendor applications	Admin workspace

Community story

Vision

To build Canada’s most welcoming digital souk for culture-rich products, local makers, and community entrepreneurs.

Over time, Souk can grow from a curated pilot into a platform that helps communities launch and manage their own digital marketplaces with less technical friction.

MVP Direction

The first build focuses on:

• Public marketplace browsing
• Vendor profiles and product listings
• Search and filters
• Customer inquiries and vendor applications
• Optional inquiry basket for asking about multiple products from one vendor
• Admin-managed publishing
• Multilingual routing and RTL support
• Accessible, mobile-friendly UI
• Basic analytics foundations

Out of scope for the MVP:

• Automated billing
• Real cart checkout, Stripe payment flow, and order management
• Customer accounts
• Customer dashboards
• Vendor dashboards
• Reviews
• Mobile app release
• Advanced AI features

The goal is to validate the marketplace first, then grow with intention.

Tech Stack

Souk uses Next.js, React, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, shadcn/ui, Drizzle ORM, PostgreSQL, and next-intl.

The api/ lane is a future-ready FastAPI space for data services, analytics, integrations, and machine learning workflows when the platform needs them.

Local Development

cp web/.env.example web/.env
docker compose up -d db
scripts/bootstrap-web.sh
scripts/dev-web.sh

Open:

http://localhost:3000/en

For environment variables, database commands, Docker notes, API setup, and route details, see Local development.

Documentation

Start with docs/README.md.

Helpful project docs:

• Product framing
• Requirements
• Roadmap
• Tasks
• Local development
• Pilot launch checklist

Contributor Workflow

See CONTRIBUTING.md for contribution guidelines.

Before opening a change:

scripts/check-web.sh
scripts/check-api.sh

Keep changes aligned with the current MVP principle:

Keep Souk simple, curated, admin-managed, multilingual, accessible, and pilot-ready. Browse first. Inquire first. Validate first. Checkout later.

Credits

Built by Sakia Labs with 💖 for culture, community, and opportunity.