El Palacio de Hierro’s Mobile App
The Challenge
Create El Palacio de Hierro’s first mobile app that merges luxurious in-store aesthetics with integrated commercial and credit account management.
Project Details
El Palacio de Hierro, Mexico's most prestigious department store, partnered with Astound to develop their first-ever mobile app. The goal was to translate the store’s opulent and sophisticated essence into a digital format, ensuring the app functioned as a digital storefront while reflecting the luxury of the physical stores. The app needed to integrate both commercial shopping experiences and comprehensive credit account management into a single, cohesive platform. To achieve this, Astound’s team was divided into two focused streams: commercial and credit, which allowed for dedicated attention and expedited project completion.
Design Directions - Where We Started
Design Directions provided a glimpse of the future design system of the app by leveraging El Palacio de Hierro’s existing brand guidelines and website. Although the brand was already well-recognized, its appeal primarily catered to an older, higher-income demographic. To broaden its reach, the app featured dynamic layouts, inspirational imagery, and a renewed emphasis on haute couture. These elements were carefully crafted to attract a younger, more diverse audience while maintaining the brand's luxurious reputation, ensuring that the app resonated with both existing customers and a new generation of shoppers.




Strategy - Experience Vision
Using the customer segmentation data the client provided, the Strategy Director meticulously crafted six personas, each representing a distinct segment of your target audience. Through these personas, he embarked on six unique user journeys, offering a glimpse into interactions within both facets of your Super App - Commercial and Credit. These journeys seamlessly traverse through the various functionalities, from essential MVP features to fast-follow enhancements and forward-thinking innovations. These journeys offered a comprehensive overview of the app experience, providing a realistic depiction of potential user paths. They served as a foundation for further refinement during our sprint cycles.

UX and UI Design
Following thorough requirement alignment, the UX Designers crafted a comprehensive suite of wireframes for the Interface experience, meticulously detailing each step of the customer journey, component, and interaction across the entire end-to-end flow, including the two streams of work, commercial and credit. They served as an organized roadmap, empowering client stakeholders to confidently approve designs while providing the UI Designers with a locked-in canvas to seamlessly integrate branded styling. A consistent UI design language between different sections of the app, namely between commercial and credit, tied the overarching brand together within this interlaced, multifaceted app.
Commercial Experience

Splash Screen

Home Page

Navigation

Product Detail Page
Credit Experience

Credit Card Details

Account
Success Metrics
The app was released on both the App Store and Google Play Store in October 2023, precisely eleven months after the project began, and a month earlier than planned.
303%
El Palacio's overall ecommerce revenue increased
Online Turnover Growth
374%
Revenue generated from mobile devices soared
Mobile Turnover Boom
57%
The brand's total conversion performance improved
Overall Conversion Gain
41%
El Palacio's overall net profit climbed to 145 million USD.
Profit Surge
4.9★
6.6K reviews
100K+
Downloads
★★★★★
Intuitive, easy to use
"It is a super intuitive platform, with a super functional design and easy to use. The products are easy to find and it also allows you to download the app from the United States. I love El Palacio!"

My Role : Creative Director / Head of UX and UI
UX Designers : Carolyn Aluotto (Lead), Katherine Diaz (Lead), Serhii Shvydkyi, Anton Kharytonov, Dragomir Dimitrov
UI Designers : Suki Mei Fei Soo (Lead), Anastasia Kobylynska (Lead), Oleksii Kaznovetskyi (Lead), Vladislav Panaskin, Oleksii Kaznovetskyi, Joseph Paquette
Strategy Director : Sasha Herman