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Project Background

Swipe iX collaborated with our client, Alpha Gulf Auction Company, to develop Mazadak, a unique auction and sales app and platform that offers high-luxury items to a premium clientele. Today, Mazadak is the leading automotive auction and sales platform across the United Arab Emirates and Middle East, with an expanded selection of many other luxury products. Swipe iX developed an intuitive interface and highly automated backend for the app, setting standards for a credible, transparent, and reliable experience.

The Challenge

In 2019, Swipe iX met Alpha Gulf through a mutual party to work on the maintenance and stability of its ambitious auction app, Mazadak; the app enables users to auction high-end vehicles. But at that stage, it was still rudimentary and yet to gain traction among users.

Mazadak app served only one purpose: to auction cars. It didn’t cover other products or sales channels. The design was still bare and relied on a large number of manual and multi-step processes. For example, users had to fill in over a dozen pages of information when adding a listing. They also needed to take the vehicle to a Mazadak-affiliated showroom for photos. Even payments were laborious and intensely manual, requiring electronic transfers into a bank account and no simple way to credit users’ unspent funds.

Our client knew what it wanted and had high expectations. Developing strong and ongoing relationships sits at the heart of Mazadak’s success, and our Swipe iX team works hard to ensure we deliver

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The Solution

Swipe iX initially checked the existing app code for stability and improved maintenance – an intense process of discovery leading to some significant reengineering of the code and platform.

Alpha Gulf and Mazadak’s attitude is very much “nothing is impossible”, and Swipe iX rose to match that demanding culture. We frequently met with the Alpha Gulf stakeholders and continue to do so, providing consultation and ideas and bringing their requests to life.

What started as a three-month engagement turned into a two-year (and counting!) relationship. We work closely with Alpha Gulf, adding new features and enhancements to Mazadak. Swipe iX expanded Mazadak from focusing solely on vehicle auctions to offering sales across multiple luxury products. Today, Mazadak’s audience can buy and sell cars, motorcycles, watercraft, aircraft and heavy machinery, custom number plates, and even luxury jewellery and watches.

Our developers and architects introduced considerable automation. Using APIs, we provide easy discovery of makes and models, and automate the previous multi-step manual enrolment of products. Mazadak users can upload photos of their products without any interventions. They can deposit and withdraw money via digital wallets, access auto-refunds and use various payment methods, including Apple Pay, Visa, Mastercard, and popular regional payment services. Buyers and sellers can negotiate directly or automate bidding offers, and supply deposit amounts to verify their intent. Mazadak is no longer just an auction app; it’s the platform for a community of engaged and serious buyers and sellers.

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The Result

Today, Mazadak rules its market across the UAE and beyond. Before Swipe iX took on the project, the app attracted as little as 17 downloads. Two years later, it’s reached over 72 500 downloads on Android, and 133 137 on iOS.

We increased the range of products available and added sales features, automated enrolment, payment and due-diligence processes. Our design team completely rebuilt the interface, and our engineers established a robust platform that continues to expand, adding new features and efficiencies.

Yet the project’s most outstanding achievement is how it reflects our collaborative culture. Alpha Gulf sees the sky as the limit. The company required a development partner that could test its ideas and bring them to life while respectfully pushing back, helping mould concepts and coming up with alternative strategies.

Too often, applications and platform ideas fail due to lack of collaboration or conversation. Such an approach doesn’t allow the product to evolve and grow. But at Swipe iX, we stake our success on our relationships, and we work closely with our clients to get results. Alpha Gulf refers to Swipe iX as part of the family, respecting our ideas while expecting us to respect theirs and take them seriously.

Mazadak is the perfect example of this synergy. Today, we’re working on more exciting features, including potential firsts for the global online auctioning world. Because together, nothing is impossible.







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McCain digital-to-print cookbook creator

Website • UX • UI • CMS • Analytics • AWS