MutindoExpress needed an online store to sell smartphones, tablets, and laptops directly to Ugandan customers. Here's how we approached it, and the decisions that shaped the final platform.
The brief
MutindoExpress wanted a high-performance electronics storefront that could compete with the buying experience customers were already used to from larger, international platforms, while being genuinely built for how Ugandan shoppers browse, decide, and pay.
Why we built on Bagisto
Rather than building a fully custom e-commerce engine from scratch, we chose Bagisto, a Laravel-based, open-source e-commerce platform, as the foundation. This gave MutindoExpress a mature, well-tested catalog and order management system out of the box, while leaving room for the custom work that actually mattered: the storefront experience, filtering, and UGX-first pricing throughout.
The result runs on Laravel, Bagisto, Vue.js, Tailwind CSS, and MySQL, a stack chosen for reliability and long-term maintainability rather than novelty.
What we customised specifically for the Ugandan market
- UGX pricing as the default currency throughout, not a converted afterthought
- Category browsing tuned for electronics specifically: phones, tablets, and laptops with filtering by price, brand, and specification
- A storefront built for mobile shoppers, since the overwhelming majority of MutindoExpress's traffic comes from phones on local mobile networks
- Visual search, letting customers find products faster without needing exact product names
The admin side matters just as much
A store is only as good as the team's ability to run it day to day. MutindoExpress's team manages inventory, pricing, orders, and promotions directly through the admin panel, without needing developer involvement for routine changes, which was a core requirement from the outset.
What we'd tell other electronics retailers
Electronics buyers in Uganda are price-sensitive and comparison-shop heavily before buying. A storefront that makes filtering and comparing genuinely fast, rather than burying products in slow, cluttered category pages, directly affects whether a visitor completes a purchase or bounces to check a competitor.
You can see the live store at mutindoexpress.com.
If you're building or rebuilding an online store and want it built around how your specific customers actually shop, get in touch.
