Designing the future of retail for bol

Bol is the leading Dutch e-commerce platform in the Netherlands and Belgium, serving over 13.8 million customers and offering more than 41 million items.

At bol I was hired as a Product Design Lead across multiple high-impact product teams, shaping design direction at the intersection of user experience, brand storytelling, and scalable design systems. My work combined hands-on product design with setting direction, aligning teams, and mentoring designers, allowing quality and creativity to scale across one of the largest digital platforms in the region.

Bento box design for internal presentation

Content & Customer Experience Direction

I joined the Discover team at a pivotal moment: bol needed a content management system (CMS) that could support faster storytelling, better personalization, and consistent brand expression across web and app.

Design direction

I helped lead the experience and design direction during the rollout of the new headless CMS (Contentstack), defining scalable content components and patterns that allowed teams to tell meaningful stories without sacrificing usability or performance.

The shift away from one-off campaign thinking toward system-driven storytelling enabled consistent, flexible use of content across campaign landing pages, Brand Stores, and reusable editorial components.

Impact

This work introduced a scalable content foundation that empowered teams to create richer experiences faster and more consistently across platforms, setting a new standard for how content is designed and managed within bol’s digital ecosystem.

I joined the Discover team at a pivotal moment: bol needed a content management system (CMS) that could support faster storytelling, better personalization, and consistent brand expression across web and app.

Design direction

I helped lead the experience and design direction during the rollout of the new headless CMS (Contentstack), defining scalable content components and patterns that allowed teams to tell meaningful stories without sacrificing usability or performance.

The shift away from one-off campaign thinking toward system-driven storytelling enabled consistent, flexible use of content across campaign landing pages, Brand Stores, and reusable editorial components.

Impact

This work introduced a scalable content foundation that empowered teams to create richer experiences faster and more consistently across platforms, setting a new standard for how content is designed and managed within bol’s digital ecosystem.

Light and Dark Mode examples of a Product Page concept
Examples of Brand Shop Pages

Conversion & Checkout Experience

Within the Optimal Checkout Experience team, my role focused on improving clarity, confidence, and momentum through the most tension-filled moments of the customer journey.

Experience direction

I partnered closely with product managers, developers, and analytics to guide end-to-end checkout improvements, grounding design decisions in customer research, experimentation, and performance metrics rather than aesthetics alone.

I also mentored designers on designing for conversion: reducing cognitive load, using progressive disclosure, and applying clear visual hierarchy and feedback at critical decision points.

I led the product design experience across the full checkout funnel, including basket and upsell flows, payment selection, delivery choice, and the confirmation experience.

Impact

The resulting checkout experience improved clarity and user confidence while supporting measurable conversion uplift.

More importantly, we established a North Star for how bol approaches clarity, hierarchy, and feedback in critical purchase flows.

Within the Optimal Checkout Experience team, my role focused on improving clarity, confidence, and momentum through the most tension-filled moments of the customer journey.

Experience direction

I partnered closely with product managers, developers, and analytics to guide end-to-end checkout improvements, grounding design decisions in customer research, experimentation, and performance metrics rather than aesthetics alone.

I also mentored designers on designing for conversion: reducing cognitive load, using progressive disclosure, and applying clear visual hierarchy and feedback at critical decision points.

I led the product design experience across the full checkout funnel, including basket and upsell flows, payment selection, delivery choice, and the confirmation experience.

Impact

The resulting checkout experience improved clarity and user confidence while supporting measurable conversion uplift.

More importantly, we established a North Star for how bol approaches clarity, hierarchy, and feedback in critical purchase flows.

Example of a redesign concept for the Checkout of bol (drag the arrow-icon)
Checkout Experience Concept (Animation)

Platform Quality & Systems Direction

The Product Detail Page is bol’s commercial heartbeat and most visited touchpoint.

The challenge wasn’t simply a redesign, but transformation at scale: migrating all PDP variants into a new technical stack while raising UX quality, accessibility, and consistency across millions of daily interactions.

Systems direction

As Product Design Lead, I focused on driving system-level quality across distributed teams. My role centered on aligning visual and UX direction, mentoring designers on component thinking and accessibility, and ensuring design direction remained consistent throughout platform migration.

Design decisions were evaluated not only for aesthetics, but for scalability, performance, and conversion impact.

Impact

This work accelerated platform innovation while improving UX quality and accessibility across bol’s most commercially significant surface. It reinforced the importance of system-level thinking, enabling consistent design direction to scale across teams and millions of users.

The Product Detail Page is bol’s commercial heartbeat and most visited touchpoint.

The challenge wasn’t simply a redesign, but transformation at scale: migrating all PDP variants into a new technical stack while raising UX quality, accessibility, and consistency across millions of daily interactions.

Systems direction

As Product Design Lead, I focused on driving system-level quality across distributed teams. My role centered on aligning visual and UX direction, mentoring designers on component thinking and accessibility, and ensuring design direction remained consistent throughout platform migration.

Design decisions were evaluated not only for aesthetics, but for scalability, performance, and conversion impact.

Impact

This work accelerated platform innovation while improving UX quality and accessibility across bol’s most commercially significant surface. It reinforced the importance of system-level thinking, enabling consistent design direction to scale across teams and millions of users.

Example of a redesign concept for the Product Page of bol (drag the arrow-icon)
Redesign concept for the Product Page iOS App
A landing page made with the headless CMS

“

Jan-Paul was instrumental in the development of the new CMS pages for bol. He brought a unique combination of Digital Product Design, deep understanding of consumer behaviour, and meticulous attention to detail to the project. This resulted in a high quality end product that not only exceeded expectations, but was also way beyond a minimal viable product.”

Jan Willem Mathijssen, Project Lead at bol
Brand Storefront Pages
Campaign pages with a countdown component
Early concept for personalised checkout flow
All pages work from mobile to desktop

“We saw significant uplifts in key metrics such as engagement and conversion rates, directly attributable to Jan-Paul’s work.”

“We saw significant uplifts in key metrics such as engagement and conversion rates, directly attributable to Jan-Paul’s work.”

Jan Willem Mathijssen, Project Lead at bol