Shopify custom app development for back office functions - gift card API and customer service

First Glance

Untuckit is an American apparel company originally focused on men's shirts that look good when worn untucked. The first Untuckit retail store was opened in September 2015, and the company now has 74 retail locations.

In 2016, Untuckit and Shopify approached Sunrise Integration to provide technical integration services for custom gift card API services. Untuckit wanted to provide advanced options for digital gift cards. The Shopify platform offered native gift cards however Untuckit's specific use-case was not available. Shopify recommended Sunrise Integration as an API solution provider for custom gift card development. The Sunrise Integration Shopify team got to work designing a gift card service that matched the requirements from Untuckit.

The Challenge

Untuckit was looking for a specific gift card workflow that was not supported by Shopify. In order to facilitate the requirements, a custom gift card API integration was needed. This is where Sunrise Integration was called in to solve the problem. The current Shopify gift card service did not allow one to purchase a card for an external individual while electronically sending the gift card to that individual. Since gift cards are treated as currency, the Shopify system would only allow the purchaser to send the gift card to themselves. This experience made it difficult to utilize the gift cards as holiday gifts or birthday presents. Untuckit wanted to open up the creation and delivery of the gift cards. Sunrise Integration would have to develop a custom Shopify app and API integration to add these services to the Untuckit store.

The Solution

Since a native solution was not possible via the Shopify site, a custom API development was required to meet Untuckit's requirements. The process involved creating a custom Shopify theme page with expanded form fields for the gift cards. This page would capture the gift card details and customer information. The expanded information was saved as special order-properties on the final Shopify order. After the checkout process was completed, a custom created Shopify app (called Gift Card Pro) would intercept the gift card details and create a new workflow using the app. 

The Outcome

With the custom API integration in place, Untuckit customers can now create gift cards and send them directly to recipients without having to manually forward the details as was the native solution.

As an added bonus, Sunrise Integration was able to add custom landing pages to the app design. This allowed Untuckit to offer unique landing experiences to match occasions like holiday gift cards, birthday or any other need. When the recipient clicked on their gift card, the link would take them to the pre-selected landing page to match the desired experience.

Since the gift card API app and integration were a custom solution, Sunrise Integration was able to provide managed hosting for the application services. A highly available AWS infrastructure powered the services to ensure performance even during peak holiday seasons when the web traffic nearly tripled.