Overview
Afritales & Artistry partnered with Venda Technologies to build a unified digital marketplace and cultural hub. The objective was to engineer a highly secure, conversion-optimized platform capable of seamlessly managing direct art purchases, exhibition ticketing, and multi-currency payments—giving African artists a global stage and a reliable, frictionless revenue stream.
Live Project: Visit Afritales & Artistry Live ↗
Problem
Before the custom build, managing physical art sales and event registrations across multiple third-party platforms was creating a disjointed user experience. It was also actively hurting the bottom line, as high commission fees from external ticketing and e-commerce platforms ate directly into the artists’ profits.
The inefficiencies included:
- Fragmented Purchasing: A disconnected checkout experience that made buying art and booking exhibition tickets feel like two completely different, clunky processes.
- Inadequate Visual Framing: A standard template simply couldn't do justice to the vibrant, premium nature of the curated African art being sold.
- High Third-Party Fees: Revenue leaking to external ticketing sites, reducing the financial empowerment meant for the artists.
Relying on external ticketing and sales platforms was diluting the brand experience and cutting into the exact capital meant to empower underrepresented creators.
Approach
We engineered a robust, visually immersive e-commerce and ticketing ecosystem. We focused on building an interface that acts as a digital gallery, backed by a hardcore, secure operational engine to handle transactions.
The solution included:
- Custom E-Commerce Engine: Developed a sleek, secure digital storefront for purchasing art directly from the platform, optimized for high-resolution imagery and fast load times.
- Zero-Commission Exhibition Ticketing: Engineered a fully owned, native ticketing system that allows users to browse upcoming events, reserve spots, and receive digital tickets instantly—keeping 100% of the revenue in-house.
- Integrated Payment Infrastructure: Deployed a seamless checkout architecture supporting both local (Lipa na M-Pesa) and global card payments to ensure artists can sell to anyone, anywhere in the world.
Outcome
Integrated Payment Infrastructure: Deployed a seamless checkout architecture supporting both local (Lipa na M-Pesa) and global card payments to ensure artists can sell to anyone, anywhere in the world.
The results were immediate and measurable:
In-House Event Ticketing (Zero external commission fees).
via seamless multi-currency & local payment integrations.