Case study 03
Hunkemöller: a lingerie store in your pocket
Six years designing the mobile app of an international lingerie retailer: from a simple first version to native checkout, one-click buying and a loyalty program people play with.
The brand
Hunkemöller started in Amsterdam in 1886 as a corset shop. Today it is an omnichannel lingerie brand with more than 7,400 employees in 19 countries, and the market leader in the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and Germany.
The brand had a website but no app, while more and more of its customers were shopping on their phones. We set out to build one of the first mobile apps for a lingerie retailer.
Start simple
The first version was deliberately small. Customers could register, log in and shop the online store through a web view, with a personal shop built from their size and colour preferences.
It was a success for the brand, and Hunkemöller kept building with us. Each release added a new reason to open the app.
More reasons to come back
Later versions turned the app from a store into a place customers return to. Members can buy and send gift cards, collect Passion Points in the True Love loyalty program, share a wishlist with their size, and pick interests so offers and invitations match them.
The Wheel of Passion game gives members a daily spin for discounts, coupons and gifts.
Native checkout
Buying through a web view was the weak point. I mapped the whole journey, from shop to product page to basket and checkout, and designed a native checkout in the app: promotion codes and Passion Points in the basket, delivery to home, a shop or a pick-up point, and a basket a customer can share for someone else to pay.
The native checkout was a breakthrough for the brand: it brought many more new users into the app and multiplied the volume of purchases made through it.
The redesign, in motion
A concept for the next version of the app, built as a clickable prototype in Figma: a calmer onboarding, a personal home, and new ways to find a product, from categories and search to a barcode scanner.
This is a recording of the prototype. Pick a moment on the right to jump to it.
Small things, done carefully
Between big releases I kept polishing the details: empty states that invite the customer back to shopping, and a tab bar with labels, so every icon says what it does.
The app also got a dark theme, designed screen by screen rather than inverted: the basket keeps its hierarchy, and pink actions and the map stay readable on a dark background.
Favourites · light and dark theme
Basket · light and dark theme
Delivery · light and dark theme
One-click buy
Customers enter their billing, shipping and payment details once. From then on, an express checkout confirms the order with a fingerprint or a code, in a single tap.
The feature tripled the brand’s online sales.
Outcome
One of the first mobile apps for a lingerie retailer, grown from a web view into a native shopping and loyalty app.
Next project
Esso Extras