The problem

For many brands, there has been a massive blind spot in retail when selling through wholesale channels. When a brand ships their products to a distributor or retail chain, that distributor decides which 20 or 30 stores get the products - but that information rarely makes it back to the brand. 

Even when it does, stores go in and out of stock daily, and brands have no way to track or use that data effectively. For years, brands have had virtually no visibility into where their products were actually being sold or whether they were in stock.

Although there were solutions that promised to bridge that gap, up to 40% of the data was based on outdated scan data. Customers would go looking for a product, only to find it had been sold out for weeks.

That’s why Ivan Sanchez founded StoreLocators — a platform that would provide real-time inventory data from physical retailers. Initially, his solution proved to be more reliable than the competition, but success came with its own limitations.

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Growth hindered by manual processes

Every merchant onboarded required the StoreLocators team to access the Shopify store and manually inject custom code. The process was not only time-consuming but created significant friction - merchants were understandably hesitant to grant store access to a third party, and would often refuse. "We couldn’t scale revenue quickly enough because of how manual our sales process was," Ivan explained.

Despite building a sophisticated backend platform that could deliver real-time inventory data, merchants had no way to interact with it. "Even though we would offer to do all the work, merchants still wanted to have more control over their stores. We needed to give them an app they would trust, not just some custom code."

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The Shopify integration dilemma

So Ivan set out to build a proper Shopify app with an embedded interface that would allow merchants to onboard themselves and have more control. But every time he considered building it, the technical overhead felt insurmountable.

"For months, we just didn't bother trying. I know how much work it is. I don’t want to deal with OAuth. I don't want to deal with syncing models. I don't want to deal with webhooks. I don't want to deal with the performance requirements... Even with the limited growth, it just wasn’t worth it." Ivan said.

Without an automated onboarding flow, email sequences, or self-service configuration, every aspect of the customer journey required manual intervention. The business had hit a ceiling that only a proper Shopify app could solve.

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The solution

Eventually, Ivan brought on Damian Polan to help with AI initiatives and finally tackle the Shopify integration that had been sitting on a wishlist for months. Instead of building from scratch, the plan was to use Gadget, a platform that claimed to handle all of the annoying parts of building Shopify apps.

They needed a way to bridge their existing platform with Shopify. They wanted to have an embedded experience for merchants that could communicate with their existing backend. Gadget provided the perfect solution.

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Thanks to Gadget, we have time to invest deeply into our sales process and finally ramp up revenue
Ivan Sanchez, Founder

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Data synchronization: Gadget's built-in Shopify connection automatically synced all merchant data, including products, stores, and variants into Gadget's database. This gave them a real-time mirror of each merchant's Shopify data without having to build custom sync logic.

API integration: Using Gadget's custom actions and routes, they created endpoints that their existing StoreLocators platform could call to retrieve merchant data and push inventory updates back to the Shopify-embedded interface.

Embedded user interface: Gadget's embedded frontend capabilities allowed them to build a rich merchant dashboard that lived directly in the Shopify admin, giving merchants the control they wanted while maintaining connection to the StoreLocators backend.

Background task processing: When merchants made configuration changes in the Shopify app, Gadget's background tasks would queue API calls to update their main platform, ensuring both systems stayed in sync.

Painless API upgrades: Gadget would handle all future Shopify API version updates with one-click upgrades, eliminating the ongoing maintenance work that typically requires hours of manual updates and testing.

GGT Sync: Damian could work locally in his preferred editor while changes synced live to Gadget's interface, creating a seamless development workflow that combined local flexibility with cloud-based app management.

AI Assistant: Gadget's AI assistant would understand the entire application context and framework patterns, enabling the StoreLocators team to implement complex features while maintaining code quality and platform conventions — without spending hours reading through documentation.

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With Gadget handling OAuth, rate limits, model syncing, database setup, and app installation flows automatically, the team could focus entirely on building unique features for StoreLocators. 

"It felt like everything was just instantly done. The Shopify app was spun up, all the auth and setup was done for us, it was live in the Shopify Admin, and I was actually working on proper business logic," Damian explained. What had previously been months of infrastructure work was accomplished in mere minutes.

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AI-powered development that actually worked

StoreLocators had customers on both new and legacy themes, and one of the project's most ambitious requirements was creating multiple UI variations that would work for anyone.

Using Gadget's theme extension capabilities and AI guidance, Damian built eight different variations of the feature. In just four days, the app had the option to add retail trust badges, maps, and configurations for Theme 1.0, Theme 2.0, and headless implementations. 

Because Gadget’s AI assistant was trained on the platform framework, it did so much more than simple code generation. The assistant made file changes across the application, renamed files, and most importantly, taught Damian how to use Gadget's framework without documentation deep-dives.

"It's not a gimmick," Damian emphasized. "It really understands the entire app, and it unblocked me multiple times." 

The AI would always adhere to the framework's conventions and best practices, accelerating both development speed and code quality. When implementing background tasks, the assistant not only implemented the feature but even created a reusable "write to Shopify" action with proper error handling and retry logic.

Damian explained, "It always uses the Gadget way to do it, and that keeps the app efficient. No matter what you launch, you know it’s done right."

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The results

The transformation was immediate. After just a few days of work, they submitted their app to Shopify's review process and were approved immediately — with no feedback. 

In just 9 days, they had gone from zero to the Shopify App Store.

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Building with Gadget didn't just give StoreLocators a Shopify app — it fundamentally changed their business model from a manual service to an automated, scalable platform. "It really has changed how much customers trust us, and that translates to actual money," Ivan explained.

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• 85% reduction in onboarding time: StoreLocators went from hours of manual setup and intervention to a simple self-service install process.
• 100% performance compliance: When they submitted their app to the Shopify App Store for review, they met every technical requirement with flying colors.
• 0 hours of maintenance: All the time Ivan and Damian worried about 
• 30% higher conversion rates: The embedded Shopify app means more merchants are willing to try StoreLocators without security concerns about manual code injection.
• 90% development time saved: What would have taken months to build without Gadget was completed in just a few days.
• Unlimited scaling potential: The technical barrier of scaling on Shopify is handled by Gadget, eliminating any operational bottlenecks for growth.

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Gadget completely removed the technical barriers that had been limiting StoreLocators' growth potential. No more awkward conversations about store access or custom code injection. Instead, StoreLocators can now confidently pitch a professional Shopify app that merchants have full control over.

Ivan said, "Thanks to Gadget, we have time to invest deeply into our sales process and finally ramp up revenue.” 

The 9-day timeline included not just core app functionality, but multiple theme extension variants, a billing integration through Mantle, and a complete merchant interface.

"It is the fastest I've ever built something production-ready," Damian said. "Anything equivalent would have taken at least eight to ten times longer. It's months of work, done in what felt like hours."

For StoreLocators, Gadget wasn't just a development tool - it was the key to unlocking their growth potential and transforming their entire business model. Now, they have an automated platform ready to capture the growth Ivan had been building toward for years.