How National Digital built an innovative marketplace platform that lets gift recipients choose their own gifts from thousands of products across Shopify and WooCommerce stores.

Gratofy: Custom E-commerce Marketplace Development

Revolutionising Gift-Giving with Choice and Flexibility

What makes Gratofy's marketplace platform unique?

High confidenceVerified 12 Oct 2025

Gratofy is a custom-built gift marketplace using Laravel and Nuxt that integrates with both Shopify and WooCommerce, allowing gift senders to provide choice while recipients select their preferred items. The platform features advanced API infrastructure for filtering thousands of products, real-time inventory synchronisation, and branded email communication tools.

Additional Context

Traditional corporate gifting lacks personalisation and often results in unwanted items. Gratofy needed a technical solution that could aggregate products from multiple e-commerce platforms while maintaining real-time accuracy and brand control.

Sources

National Digital Client Project
Custom marketplace integrating Shopify and WooCommerce with real-time synchronisation

Corporate gifting has traditionally been a one-size-fits-all proposition - companies select items they hope recipients will appreciate, often missing the mark. Gratofy approached us with a vision to revolutionise this experience: create a marketplace where gift givers provide the choice, and recipients select what they actually want from a curated selection of products. The Australian corporate gifting market, worth over $500 million annually, was ripe for disruption through technology that could balance sender control with recipient autonomy.

The technical challenge was substantial. We needed to build a platform that could aggregate products from multiple e-commerce systems (Shopify and WooCommerce), maintain real-time inventory accuracy, filter thousands of items with precision, and provide a seamless selection experience for recipients. All while giving corporate clients full control over branding, budgets, and communication. The complexity was amplified by Australian GST requirements and the need to handle products from stores across multiple states with different shipping considerations.

Our solution leveraged Laravel for robust backend API development and Nuxt.js for a responsive, intuitive frontend. This modern stack provided the flexibility and performance needed to handle complex product synchronisation, user management, and campaign workflows that make Gratofy's unique business model possible.

From Generic Gifts to Personalised Choice

Problem

Corporate gifting lacked personalisation, resulting in wasted budget on unwanted items while companies struggled to manage gift campaigns across diverse recipient preferences and budgets.

Business Impact:

Time Wasted:20 hours per week managing gift selections and recipient communications

Cost Implication:Substantial costs in unused or unwanted gift inventory

Opportunity Cost:Lost client relationships from impersonal gifting experiences and inability to scale campaigns effectively

Solution

Build custom marketplace platform integrating Shopify and WooCommerce with advanced filtering, real-time synchronisation, and branded communication tools.

Our Approach:

1
API Architecture Design(4 weeks)
Designed robust API infrastructure supporting complex product metadata and multi-platform integration
2
E-commerce Integration(6 weeks)
Built real-time synchronisation with Shopify and WooCommerce stores for inventory and product data
3
Marketplace Frontend(6 weeks)
Developed intuitive Nuxt.js interface with advanced filtering and seamless recipient experience
4
Communication Platform(3 weeks)
Created branded email system with editable templates and campaign management tools

Expected Outcome:Scalable gift marketplace enabling corporate clients to provide choice while maintaining budget control and brand consistency

The API architecture forms the backbone of Gratofy's platform. We engineered a sophisticated integration layer that connects to both Shopify and WooCommerce APIs, normalizing diverse product data structures into a unified format. This enables seamless filtering across thousands of products regardless of their origin platform.

Real-time synchronisation was critical to the user experience. Recipients needed confidence that items they selected were actually available. Our solution implements webhook listeners and scheduled polling to maintain up-to-date inventory data. When stock changes occur on connected stores, Gratofy's platform updates within minutes, preventing the disappointment of unavailable selections.

The filtering system leverages Laravel's query builder and caching strategies to deliver fast, precise results even across massive product catalogs. Recipients can filter by category, price range, brand, and custom attributes while maintaining sub-second response times. This performance was crucial for the smooth selection experience that makes Gratofy's model work.

The branded communication tools empower corporate clients to maintain their identity throughout the gifting experience. Companies can customise email templates with their logos, colours, and messaging while Gratofy handles the technical delivery and tracking. This white-label approach positions the gift as coming from the sender, not Gratofy, strengthening client relationships.

Campaign management features allow companies to organise multiple gift campaigns, set budget limits per recipient, track redemption rates, and monitor overall program performance. The dashboard provides real-time visibility into campaign progress, enabling proactive management and optimisation.

The platform evolved from an MVP focused on corporate gifting to a broader gift-giving solution. This flexibility in the underlying architecture demonstrates our focus on building scalable systems that can adapt as business models evolve. Nuxt.js's component-based architecture made it straightforward to add new features and user flows without disrupting existing functionality.

Project Outcomes and Platform Impact

Built API-driven marketplace integrating Shopify and WooCommerce
Critical
Enabled real-time inventory sync across multiple e-commerce platforms
Critical
Created branded communication tools for white-label gifting
Important
Delivered sub-second filtering across thousands of products
Important
Transformed traditional gifting into personalised choice experience
Critical

Gratofy's custom marketplace platform revolutionised corporate gifting by providing technical infrastructure that scales with their evolving business model while maintaining exceptional user experience.

"National Digital have been pivotal partners in the scope and build of our platform," says Stefanie Carniato, Founder & CEO of Gratofy. "Their technical expertise and collaborative approach made our marketplace vision a reality." This partnership approach allowed us to understand not just the technical requirements, but the business goals driving them.

The platform's success demonstrates the power of custom development over off-the-shelf solutions. While template marketplaces exist, Gratofy's unique business model - gift givers provide choice, recipients select items - required custom architecture that could handle the complex workflows, multi-platform integration, and brand control their clients demand.

Gratofy Platform: Technical Questions

How does Gratofy sync products from Shopify and WooCommerce in real-time?

We implemented a hybrid synchronisation approach combining webhooks and scheduled polling. Webhooks provide immediate updates when connected stores make changes to inventory or products. Supplemental polling runs every 15 minutes to catch any webhook failures or network issues. This dual approach ensures data accuracy while maintaining system reliability. Laravel's queue system processes updates asynchronously to maintain platform performance during large sync operations.

What technologies power the Gratofy platform?

The platform is built on Laravel (PHP framework) for the backend API and Nuxt.js (Vue framework) for the frontend. We selected Laravel for its robust API development features, queue system, and extensive package ecosystem. Nuxt.js provided server-side rendering capabilities crucial for SEO while delivering a reactive, app-like user experience. The stack also includes Redis for caching and MySQL for primary data storage.

How does the filtering system handle thousands of products?

Product filtering leverages Laravel's query builder with strategic database indexing and Redis caching. Product metadata is indexed on frequently filtered attributes (category, price, brand) enabling fast query execution. Popular filter combinations are cached in Redis with short TTLs, reducing database load. The frontend implements debouncing and pagination to maintain responsive filtering even across large catalogs. This architecture delivers sub-second filter results for most queries.

Can companies customise the gift recipient experience?

Yes, extensive white-labeling capabilities enable companies to customise emails, landing pages, and communication with their branding. The branded communication tools provide editable templates where clients can insert logos, adjust colours, and customise messaging while Gratofy handles technical delivery. This maintains brand consistency throughout the gifting experience, positioning gifts as coming from the sender rather than a third-party platform.

How does the platform handle multiple concurrent gift campaigns?

The platform architecture supports unlimited concurrent campaigns with isolated budgets, recipient lists, and product selections. Each campaign operates independently with its own dashboard showing redemption rates, remaining budget, and recipient engagement. Campaign isolation is enforced at the database level, ensuring one company's campaigns never interfere with another's. The Laravel queue system processes campaign notifications and reminders asynchronously to prevent any single campaign from impacting platform performance.

What happens if a recipient's selected item goes out of stock?

Real-time inventory synchronisation minimises this scenario, but when it occurs, recipients receive immediate notification with options to select an alternative item. The system tracks inventory at selection time and locks availability during the checkout process. If stock depletes between selection and checkout, automated workflows notify the recipient and gift sender, offering budget-equivalent alternatives. This exception handling maintains positive user experience even in edge cases.

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From Generic Gifts to Personalised Choice

Problem

Corporate gifting lacked personalisation, resulting in wasted budget on unwanted items while companies struggled to manage gift campaigns across diverse recipient preferences and budgets.

Business Impact:

Time Wasted:20 hours per week managing gift selections and recipient communications

Cost Implication:Substantial costs in unused or unwanted gift inventory

Opportunity Cost:Lost client relationships from impersonal gifting experiences and inability to scale campaigns effectively

Solution

Build custom marketplace platform integrating Shopify and WooCommerce with advanced filtering, real-time synchronisation, and branded communication tools.

Our Approach:

1
API Architecture Design(4 weeks)
Designed robust API infrastructure supporting complex product metadata and multi-platform integration
2
E-commerce Integration(6 weeks)
Built real-time synchronisation with Shopify and WooCommerce stores for inventory and product data
3
Marketplace Frontend(6 weeks)
Developed intuitive Nuxt.js interface with advanced filtering and seamless recipient experience
4
Communication Platform(3 weeks)
Created branded email system with editable templates and campaign management tools

Expected Outcome:Scalable gift marketplace enabling corporate clients to provide choice while maintaining budget control and brand consistency

Project Outcomes and Platform Impact

Built API-driven marketplace integrating Shopify and WooCommerce

Critical

Enabled real-time inventory sync across multiple e-commerce platforms

Critical

Created branded communication tools for white-label gifting

Important

Delivered sub-second filtering across thousands of products

Important

Transformed traditional gifting into personalised choice experience

Critical

Gratofy Platform: Technical Questions

How does Gratofy sync products from Shopify and WooCommerce in real-time?

What technologies power the Gratofy platform?

How does the filtering system handle thousands of products?

Can companies customise the gift recipient experience?

How does the platform handle multiple concurrent gift campaigns?

What happens if a recipient's selected item goes out of stock?