How we built The Aniye Room, Aniye By's loyalty program
In fashion, loyalty is built on exclusivity, not promotions. Brands that work don't offer discounts to just anyone they create a world people want to belong to. Starting from this premise, we developed a fully customized loyalty program for Aniye By, a women's clothing brand founded in Carpi, shipping to over fifty countries.
The result is called The Aniye Room: four loyalty tiers (Fan, Groupie, Rock Star, and Icon), benefits shared or exclusive across tiers, personalized email marketing automation journeys, and a technical architecture designed to remain reliable over time.
Standard solutions aren't enough for a fashion brand
Loyalty programs available on the market are designed to work at scale, not to stand out. They offer points, coupons, generic discounts and for a brand like Aniye By, loved by young women and influencers for its women's clothing, this approach wasn't adequate.
The brand wanted something different: a program that wouldn't resemble any other, built exactly on its own rules, aesthetic, and brand logic. Something that wouldn't simply reward purchases, but would make every customer feel part of an exclusive world.
Existing solutions weren't extensible enough to cover all the required scenarios, from managing point expiration to refunds, from multipliers for pre-order products to real-time synchronization with email marketing flows.
Why we chose to extend Sylius Plus
Aniye By's digital store is built on Sylius, so the natural starting point was the loyalty module included in Sylius Plus. This is a component that already offers a solid foundation for managing points per order, redemption via promotions, transaction history, and accrual rule configuration from the admin area.
The real question wasn't which tool to use, but how much to customize.
The options were:
Use the module as-is, without modifications fast, but insufficient for Aniye By's needs.
Build everything from scratch on top of Sylius with maximum freedom, but with disproportionate time and costs.
Extend the module in depth, rewriting each part where the standard logic wasn't enough.
By choosing the third path, the native module provided a stable foundation already integrated into the ecosystem, with customizations doing the rest — turning it into a tailor-made product.
Architecture, flows, and implementation choices
Flow diagrams as a bridge between business needs and development
Before writing a single line of code, we modeled the entire program through detailed flow diagrams. The goal was to map every operational scenario: point acquisition from orders, newsletter sign-ups, benefit redemption, point expiration, and refund management.
This step wasn't a formality it allowed us to validate with the client that the program's logic exactly matched the desired behavior, surfacing any unconsidered scenarios or ambiguities right away, before implementation.
It also brought to light questions that, without the diagrams, would only have emerged during development or in production:
When do we credit an order's points to the user's account?
What happens to the points when a refund, even a partial one, is issued on an order?
How does the system behave when a transaction's points expire partially?
Having a shared representation of the operational flow aligned the whole team around a single, unambiguous understanding of how the program works, reducing ambiguity during development.
From diagrams to automated verification tests
The flow diagrams were translated directly into automated tests: for every branch and every condition in the diagram, a corresponding test was written, simulating the system's behavior in that specific case.
This approach brought concrete benefits on two fronts. During development, every implementation could be automatically validated against the flows agreed upon with the client. Looking ahead, every code change is automatically verified, ensuring no regressions are introduced.
The most significant customizations
Starting from the Sylius Plus loyalty component, we introduced significant extensions to meet The Aniye Room's specific requirements.
Dual benefit strategy: for some benefit types, each benefit is linked to a discount code to be manually entered at checkout; for others, we implemented the ability to create codeless promotions, automatically generated and tied to the individual customer, so the discount is applied transparently with no action required.
Tier logic: Fan, Groupie, Rock Star, and Icon, with all the rules for advancing and maintaining status even after points expire.
Automatic point expiration twelve months after accrual.
Point multiplier by product type: pre-order items generate a higher multiplier than discounted products.
Automatic birthday benefit activated on the customer's date of birth.
Mailchimp integration for real-time synchronization of loyalty status, supporting communication automation flows.
From prototype to final version
Alongside the technical design, we developed a schematic interface prototype for the section dedicated to the loyalty program within the customer's personal account area. The deliberately essential model, focused on informational structure rather than aesthetics, defined the user journey from the sign-up screen to the status and points summary page, from browsing benefits to the complete activity history.
The email marketing automation strategy for the loyalty program
Communication objective and logic
To manage the user experience across the program's four tiers and their respective benefits, we designed an email marketing automation strategy. The primary goal was to make every customer feel unique and valued, so the flows were structured so that the content of individual emails would vary based on the recipient's status tier.
The flows implemented
The journey begins with a welcome message upon sign-up. To encourage progression to the next tier, we introduced progressive engagement dynamics: when a customer is close to the next tier, she receives a motivational message showing how many points she still needs to reach the next level.
As customers advance, the system rewards loyalty progressively. At the first milestones, customers receive the free shipping benefit; at higher tiers, they can access catalog discounts.
Every purchase is reinforced by order confirmation emails reminding customers of the points just earned and their current status tier.
What to monitor over time
For anyone managing a custom loyalty program of this complexity, there are four ongoing points of attention.
Mailchimp synchronization: any mismatch between actual status and status on email lists compromises communication personalization.
Customer distribution by tier: if too few customers reach the higher tiers, the program loses its motivational power. Monitoring the distribution makes it possible to adjust advancement thresholds.
Point expiration: communicating upcoming expiration in time is a high-potential repurchase moment, to be managed with a dedicated automated email flow.
Integrity of verification tests with every production release: any code change must be verified with tests before going live.
Reusable checklist for a custom loyalty program
Map all edge-case scenarios (refunds, partial expirations, tier upgrades and downgrades) before writing code.
Have the client validate the flows through shared diagrams, not just written documentation.
Turn every branch of the diagram into an automated test scenario.
Define the exclusive benefit logic per tier before choosing the technology.
Integrate the system with your email marketing automation tool from the architecture stage onward.
Plan for an interface prototype to be approved before the final design.
Build email flows so content automatically varies by loyalty tier.
Want to build a loyalty program or a Sylius customization? Contact us.
