Raftul copiilor: product discovery, price alerts and catalogue-driven publishing
A Romanian price comparison site for toys, baby products, children’s books and school supplies. It started from the Cumpără cu AI foundation and was specialised for parents: its own look, a children’s taxonomy, an assistant that checks declared ages, email alerts when a price falls and automatic social posts.
Chapter 1 of 6A catalogue built around family shopping
1:15English narration and subtitles
Live site recording. Waits trimmed; prices are those of the recording day. Synthetic English voice (Microsoft Edge TTS), English subtitles in the picture.
1 clickstops any price alert
2 channelsautomatic posts on Facebook and Instagram
10 / 20 / 30%alert thresholds, from today’s lowest price
AWSown server, email through Amazon SES
Its own identity, on every screen
An illustrated shelf, warm colours and children’s categories set it apart from its sibling, while the same responsive structure keeps it easy on phones: on a small screen, products and the AI assistant are two tabs; on a desktop, the assistant sits beside the catalogue.
Desktop
Phone
Raftul copiilor on a desktop and its AI assistant on a phone.
Price-drop alerts by email
ChooseOn a product page the visitor picks 10, 20 or 30% below today’s lowest price and gives an email address. No account.
ConfirmA request from an unknown browser only sends a confirmation email; the alert starts when the link is used.
EvaluateAfter each nightly import, every active alert is checked against the observed lowest eligible price.
NotifyOne email when the target is reached, or one after 90 days without it. Then the alert ends.
Stay in controlChange the threshold, renew, stop one alert or forget the address entirely, from any email.
Emails leave through a database outbox and Amazon SES, paced and capped per day, with one-click unsubscribe headers. Bounces and complaints come back through SNS and block the address within seconds. Addresses are encrypted at rest with AES-GCM and looked up by a keyed hash; every withdrawal is journaled, so a restored backup can never revive an alert someone stopped.
Desktop
Phone
The alert form opens in place, under the price, on desktop and phone.
Facebook and Instagram posts from real price drops
Nightly importEnds by rebuilding the table of price drops.
Daily poolThe first run of the day chooses up to 20 offers, with limits per shop, brand and category.
Re-checkWhen a channel’s time comes, the next offer is checked again against the site’s rules.
Draw and check againThe card is drawn by code from verified fields, then checked once more.
PublishOne post, linking to the product page on the site, with the commission disclosed.
A timer runs every five minutes during the day. Each channel waits 60 to 120 minutes between posts, a product is not repeated for seven days, no brand appears twice on a channel within three days, and Facebook and Instagram are spaced apart so they do not look cross-posted. After Instagram flagged early activity as automated, its daily cap was lowered and is raised only slowly. With few real drops there are few posts: the bar is never lowered to fill the schedule.
A card drawn by the publishing software, shown here with demonstration data and the site’s own illustration. Nothing was posted for this example.
Marketing videos made for the product
Short vertical videos for TikTok, Reels and Shorts, built from real screens with programmed motion and AI-synthesised narration. Each label says what is real and what was added.
Raftul copiilor: is it really cheaper? Reading observed price history
0:55 · The video loads only when you press play.
Real pages, products and charts filmed on the live site. Frame, titles and camera movement added in editing; AI-synthesised Romanian narration; no music. English subtitles available.
Read the transcript
It’s Black Friday.
But are the price drops you see
actually real?
Raftul Copiilor has Black Friday too:
look at the new tag,
the shopping bag and the teddy in a top hat.
But we don’t promise you discounts.
We show you the prices.
On every product page
you’ll find the price history:
the price we saw at the shop,
night after night.
Not the “old” price on the label.
This pushchair:
from 2,299 lei
down to 1,300.
Here, the price really did fall.
This toy car sat at 292 lei.
On 27 October it jumps to 458,
and on the 31st it comes down to 291.
It looks like a big drop,
but it’s about the same price as three weeks ago.
This LEGO set went up:
from 209 to 266 lei.
And here, a small drop:
from 363 to 345 lei.
So this Black Friday,
before you buy, check the history.
raftulcopiilor.ro
Raftul copiilor: seasonal promotional animation
0:18 · The video loads only when you press play.
Owned SVG artwork, programmed motion, real site capture and an original synthesised soundtrack. Not generative-AI footage.
Read the transcript
The shelf is in costume! A little magic. Lots of play.
Did you spot the details?
A pumpkin among the stories. “Boo… will you read with me?”
The teddy? A little wizard. “Abracadabra!”
Two bats ready to play. “Small squadron. Big fun.”
Halloween has arrived at Raftul Copiilor.
More play. A sprinkle of magic. Discover the new look at raftulcopiilor.ro
Which detail did you spot first?
(No voice; synthesised instrumental soundtrack.)
Reusing a foundation, specialising the product
Raftul copiilor started as a copy of the Cumpără cu AI codebase. Its catalogue began as a copy of Cumpără cu AI’s children’s products, so product numbers and addresses matched. When the kids-only shops moved there, each removed product address on Cumpără cu AI began answering with a permanent redirect to the same product on Raftul copiilor, or to its category, or to a search. Kids searches on Cumpără cu AI point to Raftul copiilor.
It has its own repository, its own server on AWS and its own rules, while improvements such as price drops and statistics travel between the two.
Technology used
Python 3.12
FastAPI
SQLAlchemy
SQLite
Jinja2
JavaScript
Tailwind CSS
SVG
Gemini API
Amazon SES (SMTP)
Amazon SNS
Amazon S3
AWS Lightsail
Meta Graph API
Pillow
cryptography (AES-GCM, HMAC)
Docker Compose
Caddy
systemd timers
pytest
Playwright
What this case study does not claim
Raftul copiilor is an affiliate catalogue: purchases happen at partner shops. The social pipeline publishes to Facebook and Instagram only; the TikTok and YouTube channels carry videos we upload, not automated posts. We publish no follower, traffic or revenue figures.
