Ishara — Art Marketplace Case Study

The Challenge

Twelve years of art history trapped in a legacy system.

Ishara is one of the Gulf's leading contemporary art platforms — representing artists, managing sales, and connecting collectors with original works. But their digital infrastructure was stuck in 2009. A legacy system holding over 20GB of data, artist records, commission histories and transaction logs was becoming unmanageable. Worse, their artist-facing tools were scattered across spreadsheets, email threads and disconnected apps.

They needed a modern marketplace that could carry their full history, serve their artists professionally, and give collectors the premium experience their work deserved — across both desktop and mobile.

✕ 20GB+ of legacy data with no migration pathA decade of artwork records, artist profiles and transaction histories locked in an unexportable system.
✕ No unified artist or collector experienceArtists managed their work through spreadsheets and email — collectors had no cohesive browse or purchase flow.
✕ Commission and invoicing managed manuallyEvery sale required manual calculations, hand-prepared invoices and follow-up emails for payment confirmation.
✕ No mobile presence for a mobile-first audienceCollectors in the Gulf region skewed heavily mobile — and there was no app, and no responsive web experience.

Approach

Three layers that made a complete platform.

A platform serving artists, collectors and a curatorial team simultaneously needed to be built in layers — data first, marketplace second, mobile third. Rushing any layer would have compromised the ones above it.

Data first

Custom migration tools extracted and transformed all legacy data before the new platform went live. Zero data loss across twelve years of records.

Marketplace for makers

A full marketplace with CRM, eCommerce, invoicing, commission management, and a real-time chat engine connecting artists with the Ishara team.

Mobile native

iOS and Android apps developed alongside the web platform — not as an afterthought, giving artists and collectors a premium experience on every device.

Results

A platform that carried the past and opened the future.

The Ishara platform launched on schedule and on budget, with every artwork, every artist record and every transaction history intact. Artists logged in on day one to a professional-grade dashboard. Collectors opened apps that felt native on their devices. And the Ishara team closed their spreadsheets for good.

20GB+

Data migrated perfectly

All 12 years of artwork records, artist profiles and transaction history preserved without a single gap

2 Apps

iOS + Android launched

Native mobile experience for artists and collectors — built in parallel, not bolted on after launch

CRM

Commission management automated

No more spreadsheets — every sale tracked, every commission calculated, every invoice generated in real time

Live

On schedule and on budget

Full platform including web, iOS and Android delivered inside 20 weeks from project start

A premium digital marketplace for artists and collectors.

Twelve years of art history trapped in a legacy system.

Two weeks of data archaeology before writing a single line of code.

Three layers that made a complete platform.

Data first

Marketplace for makers

Mobile native

A platform that carried the past and opened the future.

Got legacy data that needs a modern home?

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