Case study · E-commerce
A premium saree brand, beyond the template.
Working as the white-label engineering partner of an advertising agency, we rebuilt a premium saree brand’s online store as a custom platform with its own design, customer accounts, payments and fast search.
- Client
- A premium saree brand
- Partner
- An advertising agency, white-label
- What we did
- E-commerce engineering, Custom software development, AWS cloud hosting
- Timeline
- 3 weeks
3weeks
From kickoff to delivery
2layers
Storefront and commerce engine, built separately
1brand
A design made for it, not borrowed from a theme
The brief
Our partner, an advertising agency, looked after the brand and growth of a premium saree label. Its store had started on Shopify and was ready for more: a design that carried its identity end to end, and catalogue and payment flows shaped around how it actually sells.
The agency needed an engineering team to deliver that under its own name.
01
A design that matches the brand
Every page, from the home page to the order confirmation, had to look and feel like the brand rather than a template.
02
Customer accounts
Returning customers needed their own accounts and a clear view of their orders.
03
Payments they can rely on
A payment integration inside the brand’s own checkout, handled carefully and without friction for the buyer.
04
Search that keeps up with browsing
Shoppers narrow a saree collection by fabric, weave, colour and occasion. Filtering had to feel instant.
The context
Why brands outgrow Shopify.
Shopify is an excellent place to start, and for many brands it stays the right choice. The move starts to make sense when the brand itself is the product, as it is in premium fashion.
- 01
A design ceiling
Themes and the checkout set the limits of the look. A premium brand ends up working around the template instead of expressing itself.
- 02
Catalogues with real depth
A saree is described by fabric, weave, region, border, colour and occasion. Standard product models and filters strain under attributes like these.
- 03
Apps stacking up
Each missing feature becomes another app. Costs add up, pages get heavier and the experience becomes inconsistent.
- 04
Limited control of accounts and checkout
Customer accounts, order flows and payment options follow the platform’s rules, which gets tight once the business has its own ideas.
- 05
Your data, your logic
On a custom platform the catalogue, customer data and business rules live in your own database and code, free to change as the brand grows.
The solution
A headless store, designed and engineered around the brand.
We separated what shoppers see from the engine that runs the store. The storefront is free to look exactly as the brand wants, while the commerce engine, database and search handle everything behind it.
Medusa provides the commerce building blocks as open-source modules, so the three weeks went into design, catalogue modelling and polish instead of rebuilding the basics.
How the pieces fit
Storefront
Next.js · custom brand design
Commerce engine
Medusa · catalogue, carts, orders, customers, payments
PostgreSQL
Source of truth
Redis
Speed and caching
Search engine
Faceted filters
01
A storefront designed to the brand
A custom Next.js storefront with its own typography, imagery and motion. Nothing is inherited from a theme, so the experience stays consistent from first click to checkout.
02
A catalogue built around sarees
Products are modelled with the attributes shoppers use to choose, and a dedicated search engine returns fast faceted results as filters change.
03
Accounts and payments in the brand’s own flow
Customer accounts, order history and a payment integration, all inside a checkout that looks and behaves like the rest of the store.
04
Security and finishing touches
Security essentials built in, including secure sign-in, protected admin access and careful handling of payment data, along with the finishing touches that make a store feel premium.
Search, illustrated
Finding the right drape, instantly.
Choose a fabric and a colour and the collection narrows at once.
Showing 12 of 12 sample pieces
Silk · Ruby
Silk · Emerald
Silk · Indigo
Silk · Marigold
Cotton · Ruby
Cotton · Emerald
Cotton · Indigo
Cotton · Marigold
Organza · Ruby
Organza · Emerald
Organza · Indigo
Organza · Marigold
Illustration of faceted filtering, using sample data.
The partnership
White-label: invisible by design.
Many agencies have clients who need real engineering but no in-house team to build it. In a white-label partnership we work as an extension of the agency, under its brand.
Their brand in front
The agency stayed the face of the project. Their client dealt with them throughout.
Our engineers behind
Xenora acted as the agency’s engineering team, covering architecture, build, integration and hosting.
Clear ownership
The agency owned the client relationship and creative direction. We owned engineering delivery.
Under the hood
Open, proven components, hosted on AWS.
Every layer is a widely used, well-supported tool, so the brand is never tied to one vendor’s limits.
- Storefront
- Next.js, with a custom design system built for the brand
- Commerce engine
- Medusa: products, carts, orders, customers and payments
- Data
- PostgreSQL
- Cache
- Redis
- Search
- A dedicated search engine for fast faceted search and filters
- Hosting
- AWS
The result
Delivered in three weeks, ready to grow with the brand.
The brand now has a store it controls: a custom storefront, its own customer accounts, a payment flow it can trust and search that keeps up with the way shoppers browse.
Because the storefront and commerce engine are separate, the brand can keep refining the design and add new capabilities without waiting on a platform’s roadmap.
Partner with Xenora
Have a client who needs real engineering behind your brand?
We work white-label with agencies and consultancies. Tell us about the project and we will show you how we would deliver it.