AjándékBár

The Next-Generation Gift Card Marketplace

The Ajándékbár project started with a bold idea from the BónuszBrigád team, - Hungary's leading coupon platform: they were to build a marketplace where people can buy gift cards, from multiple providers in one place. Something that simply didn't exist in the hungarian market before.

We had to ship a working version by Christmas. Development kicked off in early November, which left us with almost no runway. We hit the deadline, and have been building on top of it ever since. What started as a tight MVP has grown into a full-featured, production-grade marketplace.

The Three Pillars of the Platform

The whole system runs on three modules that work closely together:

1. Customer-Facing Webshop

The storefront is clean and fast — no registration required to browse or buy. There's a full category and campaign system with dedicated pages and menu integration, and the search actually works: autocomplete, fuzzy matching, filters for price range, discount percentage, location, and recipient type.

Buyers can personalize their gift cards with a custom image upload or AI-generated artwork, add a personal message with AI writing assistant if they need inspiration. Once purchased, the card gets sent straight to the recipient by email, with scheduled delivery if they want it timed just right, and automatic handling in case the delivery fails.

Payments go through Stripe, with Google Pay and Apple Pay supported. If someone abandons their cart, they get a friendly reminder at 2 hours and again at 24.

Every card PDF comes with a QR code to make redemption faster.

Referral program: every registered customer gets their own, unique code, and both sides get 10% off when it's used.

2. Partner Portal

Partners handle everything from their own dashboard — uploading offers, managing promo codes, and tracking redemptions in real time. Onboarding includes a platform fee payment step and automatic contract generation through eSzerződés (Hungary's e-signature platform). If a partner stalls — unsigned contract, unpaid fee, unfinished offer upload — the system nudges them automatically.

Every offer has a version history and an approval thread, so nothing gets lost in back-and-forth emails. Expired and archived offers have their own panels so the active list stays clean.

3. Admin Panel

Admins can manage categories with SEO content, run campaigns with coupon codes and scope rules, handle one-time coupons, review incoming partner applications, and dig into customer profiles with editable carts. There's also a live view of active and abandoned carts.

A few bigger features landed here too:

• Partial refunds — per item, with automatic coupon recalculation
• Gift card exchanges — triggered by an admin, with any price difference sorted via bank transfer
• GDPR anonymization — instead of deleting accounts, profiles and card data get anonymized

The content management side covers menus, subpages, and content blocks. The email template editor supports variables, recipient and BCC roles can be set per template.

Tech Stack and Integrations

The platform runs on Next.js, with Supabase for the database and Vercel for hosting. Every major design decision went through Figma first.

Payments are on Stripe, with Google Pay and Apple Pay.

Beyond that, the platform now connects with: Google Analytics API, Google Places API, Geolocation API, an AI image generator, a CRM, eSzerződés, a WYSIWYG editor, and a full marketing measurement stack — DataLayer, Tag Manager, Meta CAPI, Google Enhanced Conversions, and TikTok.

Agile Development: From V0.5 to a Full-Featured Platform

Because of the deadline, we launched a V0.5 — stripped down to what mattered most for the upcoming holiday season. It’s a prime example of building a complex, multi-stakeholder marketplace in record time. A good example of what's possible when you move fast without cutting corners on architecture — and then actually stick around to finish the job.

Since then, we've been building in close collaboration with the client, and the full V1 is now live and handling real daily traffic.

The modern tech stack and automated processes allow for rapid platform growth and easy expansion of the partner network.