Anantham Silks' customers buy sarees the way they've always bought them — through trusted relationships and personal recommendation. We built the digital infrastructure that preserves that experience while scaling it.
Anantham Silks has been selling handwoven silk sarees for decades through their physical store. Their customers are loyal, knowledgeable, and accustomed to a high-touch buying experience — where the seller knows their preferences, their occasions, and their taste. Going online meant solving a hard problem: how do you replicate the trust and personalisation of a family silk shop in a digital storefront? The answer was a Shopify store for discovery and a dedicated mobile app for the buying relationship.
Choose a page and a device, then scroll inside the frame — this is ananthamsilks.com as it runs in production today.
Their customer base was geographically concentrated. Customers and silk enthusiasts across the UK, US, and internationally had no way to buy. The brand was invisible online — no website, no shopping capability.
A handwoven silk saree has zari work, border patterns, and weave textures that look completely different at different zoom levels. Standard Shopify product pages showed one medium-res image. Customers couldn't see what they were buying.
Their customer base expects quality in every touchpoint. A standard Shopify theme with generic layout would have communicated the wrong brand signal. The digital presence needed to feel as considered as the product.
Their repeat customers wanted to be remembered — their occasions, their colour preferences, their size. A standard storefront treats every visitor identically. The mobile app was the solution to bringing relationship-based selling online.
6 workstreams, delivered by one team.
Designed a custom Shopify theme that reflects the brand's heritage — muted gold tones, serif typography, temple-inspired graphic elements. Collection pages organised by occasion (wedding, festival, daily wear) and weave type.
Worked with the brand to establish a photography standard: macro shots of zari work and border patterns, full drape shots on model, and flat-lay detail shots. Built a Shopify product page template that showcases all three view types.
Built a native mobile app (iOS + Android) using React Native, connected to the Shopify Storefront API. The app offers a personalised feed based on purchase history and wishlist — curated collections pushed to each customer based on upcoming occasions they've shared.
The mobile app includes a WhatsApp-style chat with the Anantham team — customers can share photos of their outfit, describe an occasion, and get saree recommendations. The team can share product links directly in chat. Relationship-selling, scaled.
App users set up a profile with upcoming occasions, colour preferences, and budget range. The app surfaces relevant products before those occasions and sends personalised push notifications. Customers feel remembered.
Built a premium gifting checkout flow — custom packaging selection, personalised message card, specific delivery date. For a brand whose customers buy for weddings and festivals, the gifting experience is as important as the product.
The sequence of work, week by week.
Custom theme built. Product photography system established. Collection architecture and metafields configured.
React Native app built with Storefront API integration, personalisation engine, in-app chat, and occasion profiles.
iOS and Android app review submitted. Store and app launched simultaneously with an existing-customer migration campaign.
Combined Shopify and app revenue in year one was 1.9x the previous year's physical store revenue.
Within 6 months of launch, 62% of online orders came through the mobile app, not the web store.
Both iOS App Store and Google Play. The personal stylist chat feature drives the majority of reviews.
Occasion reminders and personalised push notifications drive the highest repeat purchase rate of any client.
Carryup, a Shopify-only design and engineering studio based in Bengaluru. Our engagement with Anantham Silks: Website Development & Mobile App.
ananthamsilks.com runs on Shopify.
Heritage-aesthetic Shopify store design and build; High-fidelity product photography system; Dedicated React Native mobile app; In-app personal stylist chat, and 2 more workstreams. The full scope is broken down in the "What we built" chapter of this case study.
We only publish case studies where we can show real, verifiable metrics tied to Shopify data — but every brand's starting point is different. Anantham Silks's results reflect what was possible given their specific gaps; your results will depend on where your store, tracking, and funnel currently stand.
We won't promise a specific number without seeing your data first. What we can promise: a diagnostic that tells you honestly whether the same class of fix applies to your store.
Tell us about your brand — we'll tell you honestly what it would take to build it, and where the revenue opportunity is.
