jijiji.tw - from catalogue to a rental site that runs itself

The jijiji.tw rental shop and warehouse, seen from the front door

jijiji.tw, run by Superb.G LLC · Owner · Built with AI coding agents

Confirm, pick up, return, with no wait

I worked in set decoration before I started renting props, so I knew how this goes. Shoots need things suddenly, at any hour. If we could take a little pain off people in this industry, we should. Later, interior designers, exhibitions and theatre rented from us too.

So we never had business hours. My co-founder in Taiwan answered customers by day, and I answered through Taiwan's night from New York. It worked, but every rental still ran through a person by hand. I wanted date-based booking in 2022, but custom development was too costly for a small shop.

Before

Customer
1Browse
Catalogue online.
MANUAL
1. 2Check availability
  Asked and answered on LINE.
2. 3Quote the price
  Per rental period.
3. 4Confirm payment
  Bank transfer, checked by hand.
4. 5Send pickup details
  Instructions and the door code.
Customer
6Pickup and return

Built for how shoots actually run

Availability calendarCrew can tell at once whether a prop is available to propose.
Self-service, 24 hours a dayjijiji was the first and only prop warehouse in Taiwan with 24-hour self-service pickup and return. Order in the middle of the night without waiting for a reply, and return right after the shoot.
72-hour rental blocksThe standard shoot takes three days: collect, shoot, return. Because pickup and return were self-service around the clock, many crews could collect that morning and return that night. They still had the full 72 hours and decided for themselves.
Buffer daysShoots overrun and props need cleaning, so each return holds extra days before the next booking.

Before

Item page - a quantity field only; the rental itself happened over LINE — Rentals through LINE.

After

Item page - live availability calendar, priced per 72-hour block in real time — Dates and prices online.

In 2026 I tested whether AI coding agents could close the gap. I had a working version in about 30 hours.

Missing piece 1: the rental-period lock

Customers pick a start date. Our pricing formula calculates the rent for that rental period in real time, in 72-hour blocks, so no one has to quote it by hand.

The calendar block itself - green means bookable, gray means not — Live availability.

A date closes for one of three reasons, checked for each version of an item:

Fully bookedEvery unit of that variant is taken.
Buffer daysReturn date plus fixed days for cleaning and shoots that overrun, saved on the order.
Blocked by staffFor maintenance or damage.

No double-bookings, and no one checks a shared sheet. The same item booked for two periods in one cart stays two separate bookings.

Missing piece 2: online payments

Payment is what connected the automation.

For four years, we confirmed each bank transfer by hand on LINE. Now a verified payment confirms the order on its own, and that starts everything after it: the door code, the email and the LINE message.

Customers pay through ECPay, a Taiwanese payment service, by card, Apple Pay or ATM transfer. The system checks that each payment is real and the amount is right before it confirms an order. When a customer cancels, the refund goes through on its own. Staff can also refund with one click.

Connected

Customer
1Checkout
Picks dates and pays.
AUTOMATIC
1. 2ECPay confirms
  Payment checked.
2. 3Order confirmed
3. 4Door code saved
  Copied onto the order.
  Staff set the code in admin
4. 5Customer notified
  Email with the code, shelf location and floor plan, plus a LINE message.
Customer
6Pickup and return
On their own, 24 hours a day.

Each order keeps its own copy of the code, so changing it in admin later never breaks one a customer already has.

Results

From launch on July 15, 2026 to August 21, it took 76 paid orders from 52 customers and ran on its own from checkout to pickup.

Also built alone

Orders, items and blocked datesManage them in admin.
Discount codesChecked before payment.
Pickup and reconciliationTrack both in admin.

Buyout

Clearance items can be bought outright on the same system. Buyout only appears once the item has no active rental; otherwise the page shows its return date. Buyout orders skip the date check and go to a separate review list in admin.

The final month

The same system ran the clearance: buyouts, in-store pickup and reconciliation. Online orders closed August 23. The shop closed as planned on September 1, 2026.

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