Loupe This
A custom-built, real-time auction engine and online community for luxury watch enthusiasts and collectors.
Context
We partnered with Loupe This to create an auction platform for luxury watches, designed to handle large-sum transactions with trust and polish, in collaboration with Century Studio.
Approach
We combined real-time engineering with refined design to deliver a consistent, considered experience across platforms, supported by ongoing improvements as Loupe This grows.
Outcome
The result is an elegant, bespoke ecosystem that began with a web auction engine in 2020, expanded with a native iOS app in 2025, and continues to evolve through five years of collaboration.
Tools
Services
Industries
Collaborators
- Century Studio
Project Links
We worked with Loupe This to build a real-time auction platform for luxury watches online. The result is elegant, bespoke software, accountable for orchestrating large-sum financial transactions.
Project Overview
In 2020, we built a real-time auction engine with a highly polished frontend web experience.
To complement the web experience, we built a native iOS app that launched in 2025 with the same precision and polish.
With five years of collaboration and counting, we continue to make incremental improvements to support Loupe This as their audience grows.
Phase One, building a custom real-time auction API
We started by looking for an off-the-shelf engine we could trust. There wasn’t one, so we built one ourselves.
Defining the rules of the game
We worked with Loupe This to define the specifics of their auction logic. The bidding process is similar to the standard online auction format, however it deviates in a few key ways that keep the Loupe This auction program both exciting and secure. The specifics are detailed in the Loupe This How It Works page.
We built the core auction API using Ruby on Rails, backed by a Postgres database and a Redis cache layer. We coupled this with WebSocket and standard HTTP endpoints.
A best-in-class web experience
After building the foundational API, we embarked on building a premium user interface. We leveraged NextJS to build a combination of statically-generated content pages and interactive real-time auction pages. Content editors used Sanity CMS to compose modules for long-form content pages, as well as to populate auction pages with rich media and narrative.
Phase Two, a complementary app
After their initial success with the launch of the website in 2021, Loupe This engaged us again to create a native mobile app for iOS that could keep up with and enhance the fast-paced auction experience. We delivered UI precision and support for live data and fast performance on-the-go.
A trusted network and social hub for collectors
Part of what makes the watch community so special is its deep appreciation and enthusiasm for the craft of fine watchmaking. On each auction, Loupe This users dive into the details of watch specifics, discussing and even scrutinizing the unique characteristics of each sale item.
We built a comment system and suite of moderation tools to support the Loupe This community and their lively online discourse. Users can rely on fast performance and a refined in-app experience, which makes use of the same API across the website and app to ensure they're in sync. Push notifications allow users to keep up with live bids.
Phase Three, evolving operations
Between building the website and the app, Loupe This was able to take stock of what improvements could level up an already polished online experience. We've been working closely with their team since 2020, improving technology at the pace of their business needs.
Building the app was an organic next step in this ongoing partnership, allowing us to apply our historical knowledge to support their growth.
Ahead of their time
The Loupe This admin back-end is custom-built to support all the Loupe This team’s workflows—and five years later, little has been changed. From content uploading and photography, to comment moderation and order fulfillment, the admin back-end is set up to do it all with ease. This has had a significant impact on the team's efficiency and their ability to deliver for the Loupe This community, including support for payment stability for users to make large-sum transactions with confidence, and fostering user engagement outside of active auctions.
1 o’clock, 2 o’clock, sold!
Today, Loupe This facilitates entire live auction experiences, placing credit card holds on higher-value items, sending push notifications for when auctions are about to close, and allowing users to follow auctions for reminders and updates.
We also built a custom weekly email recap builder, making it easy to compose and send weekly emails to customers right in the Sanity CMS.
