Impact

Design went from 2 people shared-service agency to a 8 people embedded practice. Every major initiative produced results that were measured, tested, validated.

The scenario

HSE is one of Germany's largest teleshopping platforms: ~€800M in annual revenue, 46M+ households in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, around 1.8M active customers, and 17,000 SKUs across fashion, beauty, jewellery, and home. When I joined, design was a shared-service agency with 2 people, involved after decisions were made. I changed that.

  • ~35% → ~50% Digital share of total orders · 2020 → 2025
  • Digital share of HSE's orders grew from approximately 35% in 2020 to approximately 50% in 2025.
  • ~€120M more volume through digital channels against an ~€800M annual revenue base.
  • Not entirely attributable to design, but design contributed to most initiatives that moved this number.

Impact at a Glance

Product Design + User Research team
  • 2 → 8 Designers embedded in product squads
  • 0 → 1 First dedicated user researcher in company history
  • Replaced a shared-service model with 8 product designers owning outcomes inside cross-functional squads.
  • Secured and onboarded HSE's first user researcher, integrating research into product discovery from the start.
Design System & Delivery
  • ~15% Faster delivery across squads
  • ~25% Fewer UI bug tickets on high-risk journeys
  • Delivery improvement after Design System adoption across product teams.
  • Reduction in UI bug tickets after structured visual QA ritual was introduced: design veto on critical journeys before release.
E-commerce · Web & app
Search
  • +4% CTR Click-through rate on search results
  • +8% satisfaction Customer satisfaction with search
  • Search is HSE's highest-intent journey: serving 1.3M+ active customers. Improvement here has direct revenue impact.
Product page
  • -19.5% Ring return reduction
  • Saved ~€100k/year AI copywriting tool
  • Returns are a direct cost: logistics, restocking, lost revenue. Improved size-finding UX reduced ring returns by 19.5%.
  • AI copywriting tool generating product descriptions, SEO texts, and USPs for ~17,000 SKUs. Estimated ~€100k in annual agency costs eliminated. Built in months with 2 developers. Research validated: AI output perceived as equivalent to external human copywriters in qualitative user testing.
Checkout · "Buy as a Guest" flow
  • +6.6% Conversion rate uplift
  • Reduced friction at the highest-value moment in the funnel. Conversion improvement at checkout scale directly into revenue.
Social Commerce · HELLO App
  • 2.3× Return likelihood · users who followed 1+ creator
  • 100M+ People reached · 300+ creators · 4,500+ live streams
  • Users who followed at least one creator were 2.3× more likely to return vs. users who did not.
  • The HELLO App validated the hypothesis: creator-led social live commerce drives retention. It did not scale as planned. A marketing push that did not materialise, and an assortment not adapted for the 25-35 target group. Both constraints were outside design. The strongest concepts were integrated into HSE's core platforms.
Design maturity
  • From reactive, delivery-only design to a structured, embedded practice with dedicated research and clearer accountability.

What changed

The operating model shifted first. Without that, none of the metrics above would exist.

Takeaway

Measurable design impact is not a coincidence. It comes from embedding design early, measuring the right signals, and committing to what the data shows.