From Online Shop to Full Brand: How We Built Top Tools Lebanon
Top Tools Lebanon asked Torch99 for an online shop. We delivered a full brand: logo identity, UI/UX design, and a bilingual English and Arabic store with cash-on-delivery checkout, server-side Meta tracking and a clean technical SEO foundation. The owner says it drove higher sales and a fast return on investment.
Here's what we built, the decisions that mattered, and what any retailer in Lebanon can take from it.
What did the client ask for?
Salam B. owns WhiteLine Surveying & Engineering, a firm we had already built a website for. WhiteLine was launching a power tools division and wanted it selling online.
The original brief was simple:
- A store for the tools catalogue, organized by category
- Cash on delivery, because that's how Lebanon buys
- Mobile-first design
- A dashboard to manage products and orders without calling a developer
Arabic was not in the first scope. Neither was a new brand. The first plan was to carry WhiteLine's existing identity onto a store.
Both changed. The project grew into something bigger, and better.
What did we deliver?
| Area | What shipped |
|---|---|
| Brand identity | A standalone retail brand, Top Tools Lebanon, with its own logo: a gear standing in for the "o" in "Top", paired with a wrench |
| UI/UX | A mobile-first storefront: home, category pages, product pages, cart and checkout |
| Bilingual store | English and Arabic, with a full right-to-left layout for Arabic |
| Catalogue | 238 products at launch, bulk-imported, organized by category, editable by the owner |
| Checkout | Cash on delivery: name, phone, address, notes. No card gateway needed |
| Delivery rules | $5 flat anywhere in Lebanon, free on orders over $50 |
| Orders | Stored in a private orders dashboard, with an email notification on every order |
| Tracking | Meta Pixel plus Conversions API, deduplicated, with a product catalogue feed prepared for Meta |
| SEO | Per-page canonicals, a bilingual hreflang sitemap, structured data for products, FAQs and the store |
The core build ran from June 3 to July 9, 2026. Improvements kept shipping after launch.
The store is live at toptoolslb.com.
What tech stack runs Top Tools Lebanon?
- Next.js 15 (App Router, TypeScript) with Tailwind CSS for the storefront
- Sanity as the CMS, with the editing Studio embedded in the site
- Vercel for hosting and deploys
- A cash-on-delivery order API that prices every order on the server
- Meta Pixel in the browser and the Conversions API on the server
Why custom instead of Shopify? Card processors like Stripe don't serve Lebanese businesses, so a card-first platform buys little on day one. The store needed cash on delivery first anyway. A custom build also carries no monthly platform fee or app stack eating into the margin, and the owner controls every part of it.
It was also built to grow. Card payments can be added later without a rebuild.
Which decisions actually mattered?
Brand before store. A tools shop with a generic name competes on price alone. A distinct name and mark make it read as a real reseller, not a side project. This is where "online shop" became "full brand."
Arabic done properly, not just translated. Right-to-left is more than flipping text. Layouts mirror, but some things must not. We pinned the logo lockup to left-to-right so it never flips in the Arabic version, and rebuilt it as a coded vector so it stays sharp at every size.
Cash on delivery as the default. Checkout asks only for what a courier needs. The server recalculates every price before an order is saved, so a tampered cart can't change what a customer pays.
One delivery rule, stated everywhere. The first version priced delivery with a table by area. We replaced it with one flat rule: $5 anywhere in Lebanon, free over $50. One number is easier to trust. It also lives in a single place in the code, so the cart, checkout and order API can never disagree.
Tracking that doesn't rely on the browser alone. The Meta Pixel reports from the browser. The Conversions API sends purchases from the server. Both share one event ID, so Meta counts each sale once. A product feed is prepared so Meta can show the actual catalogue in ads.
SEO fixed at the root. Our SEO pass found a site-wide canonical tag telling Google that the product listing and all 16 category pages were duplicates of the homepage. Those pages were effectively invisible. We replaced it with per-page canonicals, added a bilingual hreflang sitemap, set cart and checkout to noindex, and shipped structured data for products, FAQs and the store itself. That groundwork helps both Google and AI assistants read the catalogue correctly.
The owner runs it in-house. Salam adds and edits products in the Studio built into the site. When hand-typed product URLs, including Arabic titles, started producing broken links, we didn't ask the owner to change how they work. We made every product link clean itself automatically, and added a guard so new products can't publish with a broken URL.
That last point matters more than it looks. A store the owner can't update is a store that slowly dies.
What did the client say about the result?
In Salam's own words:
I want to express my genuine appreciation to the team for delivering an outstanding project. What began as a request to build our online shop turned into a comprehensive branding transformation. They handled the entire process, including logo identity, UI/UX design, and e-commerce development, with absolute precision, saving me valuable time by autonomously managing the fine details.
Their flexibility throughout was incredible, especially with the numerous updates and feature additions I requested along the way. Since launch, our customers have had a smooth, enjoyable shopping experience, which directly drove higher sales and a fast return on investment. If you are looking for a reliable, adaptable team that delivers a complete brand presence and real business results, look no further.
Salam B., owner, WhiteLine Surveying & Engineering
We don't publish a client's revenue. The numbers belong to the client. What we can share is the outcome Salam describes: higher sales, a fast return on investment, and a store customers enjoy using.
What can other Lebanese retailers learn from this build?
- Start with how your customers pay and talk. Cash on delivery and WhatsApp first, cards later.
- Make Arabic first-class. A bolted-on translation shows.
- Treat tracking as part of the build. Without it, every ad dollar flies blind.
- Fix technical SEO before you buy traffic. Invisible pages don't rank, however good the products are.
- Own everything. Your domain, your store, your data, and the ability to edit it yourself.
If you're planning an online store, see how we approach e-commerce builds. If the brand needs work first, start with branding and websites. More builds are in the portfolio.
FAQ
How long did it take to build Top Tools Lebanon?
The core build ran from June 3 to July 9, 2026, about five weeks. Tracking, the delivery rule change and other improvements shipped after launch.
Does the store accept card payments?
Not at launch. It runs on cash on delivery, which fits the Lebanese market. The build is structured so a card gateway can be added later without rebuilding the store.
Can the owner update products without a developer?
Yes. Products, prices, stock and categories are managed in a Sanity Studio built into the site.
Is the store available in Arabic?
Yes. The storefront runs in English and Arabic, with a full right-to-left layout for Arabic.
Want a store built for how Lebanon actually buys? Talk to us.
About the Author
Liwaa Beaini is the founder of Torch99 and co-founder of Virtual Minds, an AI product studio registered under ADGM (Abu Dhabi Global Market), UAE. He is an AI strategist and product builder operating from Lebanon, specialising in GEO (Generative Engine Optimization), mobile app growth, and AI-first systems. He has grown 40+ mobile apps, advised enterprise clients across MENA, and built products across AI visibility, local intelligence, and digital transformation.
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Founder, Torch99 · Co-Founder, Virtual Minds (ADGM, UAE)
AI strategist and product builder operating from Lebanon. Founder of Torch99 and co-founder of Virtual Minds. Founder of 99Visibility — the live GEO audit platform for the AI search era.