Beyond the Hype: How CHNKS Is Building an Indian Sneaker Brand Around Everyday Loyalty

New Delhi [India], August 15: In a footwear market increasingly shaped by celebrity launches, limited drops, influencer campaigns, and fast-moving trends, building a lasting brand requires more than generating attention. For Mumbai-based CHNKS, founded by Aakanksha Rathod, the focus has been on a different measure of success: creating footwear that customers genuinely want to wear, recommend, and purchase again.

The journey of this Indian Sneaker Brand reflects a growing shift in consumer behaviour. While visibility can introduce a product to millions of people, long-term customer loyalty is built through consistent quality, comfort, reliability, and an experience that encourages people to return.

For Rathod, this philosophy has been central to the development of CHNKS from the beginning. As a female-founded and completely bootstrapped company, the brand has deliberately chosen to grow without allowing external investment pressures to dictate its product strategy. This independence has enabled the company to take a longer-term approach to product development and customer relationships.

Rather than chasing every new fashion trend, the footwear brand CHNKS focuses on creating sneakers that fit naturally into everyday life. Its products are designed for situations that consumers experience regularly—from commuting and travelling to working, socializing, shopping, and spending weekends with friends.

The idea is straightforward: a great everyday sneaker should not require an occasion.

Building Products Through Customer Feedback

One of the defining aspects of CHNKS’s approach is its emphasis on listening to customers after a product has been launched.

Instead of treating a finished product as the end of the development process, the company uses customer feedback to identify opportunities for improvement. Comfort, fit, materials, durability, packaging, and overall usability can all be refined through insights gathered from people who actually wear the products.

This creates a continuous product-development cycle rather than a seasonal race to introduce something completely new.

For an emerging Indian Sneaker Brand, this approach offers an important advantage. Instead of asking customers to constantly replace products because a new trend has arrived, CHNKS seeks to make existing products better and more useful over time.

Its signature Affogato sneaker illustrates this philosophy particularly well. The product has sold out and been restocked six times, with demand continuing to come from customers who have already experienced the product as well as new buyers discovering it through recommendations and organic visibility.

For Rathod, repeated demand is more significant than a single successful launch. It indicates that customers have found enough value in the product to come back.

Growing Through Repeat Customers

The company’s customer numbers provide another indication of this approach. Over the past two years, CHNKS has served more than 10,000 customers across India, with nearly 30 percent of orders coming from repeat buyers.

In an environment where brands increasingly compete for consumer attention and customer acquisition can become expensive, repeat purchasing offers a different form of validation. It suggests that the relationship between the consumer and the product continues beyond the initial transaction.

For CHNKS, customer loyalty is therefore not treated simply as a marketing metric. It is closely connected to the company’s understanding of product quality and satisfaction.

Organic Visibility Over Manufactured Hype

The brand’s growing visibility has also developed without relying on paid celebrity endorsements as the central pillar of its marketing strategy.

CHNKS sneakers have been worn by personalities including Ali Fazal, Abhay Deol, Vir Das, Rohit Saraf, Saqib Saleem, Adarsh Gourav, Orry, and Gurfateh Pirzada. These appearances have contributed to the brand’s visibility while reinforcing its belief that products can gain recognition organically when people genuinely connect with them.

CHNKS has also received editorial attention from publications including ELLE, Travel + Leisure, LBB, Nod Mag, All About Eve, Times Entertainment, and Local Samosa. Such recognition has helped the brand build awareness through earned visibility rather than depending entirely on traditional advertising.

A Brand Designed Around Its Community

The identity of CHNKS itself reflects the company’s community-first philosophy.

The missing “U” in the brand name is intentional. According to Rathod, the brand remains incomplete without the people who wear it. This idea is represented through the philosophy, “Better With U In It.”

The concept extends beyond branding. Customer suggestions influence future products, production decisions, packaging, and improvements to the overall experience. In this model, customers are not simply buyers; they become contributors to the brand’s evolution.

Choosing Sustainable Growth

As the company looks ahead, CHNKS plans to introduce new silhouettes, additional colourways, carefully selected collaborations, and stronger community initiatives. However, the underlying philosophy is expected to remain unchanged.

Every new product needs to offer a genuine reason to exist. Collaborations must fit naturally with the brand’s identity, while growth needs to remain aligned with long-term customer trust.

For Aakanksha Rathod, the objective is not to make CHNKS the loudest name in footwear. It is to build a brand that becomes a dependable part of people’s everyday wardrobes.

In a market where attention can disappear as quickly as the next trend arrives, the footwear brand CHNKS is taking a slower and more deliberate route—one based on product experience, customer feedback, organic discovery, and repeat purchase.

Ultimately, the strongest measure of an Indian Sneaker Brand may not be how many people notice it during a launch, but how many customers continue choosing it long after the excitement has passed. For CHNKS, that continuing relationship with its customers is becoming the foundation for building a footwear brand designed to last.

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