Seven markets, three designers, and a contract we had to win back every quarter

A retainer is a vote you face every quarter

Most design engagements are judged at the end. This one was judged every quarter.

The client worked with us on a retainer, on a quarterly rolling contract based on what they needed next. That model is honest and unforgiving. Nobody renews for a strategy deck. They renew when the store works better than it did three months ago, and when the people inside the business find the design team easier to work with than without.

So the brief was never one project. It was a standing question: what does this platform need most right now, and can a small team deliver it before the next renewal?

The ground: one brand, seven markets, three designers

Seven markets meant seven sets of shoppers, languages and expectations, on one brand and one platform: the Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Australia, New Zealand and Malaysia.

The team was small on purpose: three designers. The stakeholders were not. More than fifteen people across three functions had a stake in every change:

• Marketing owned campaigns, key visuals and messaging.
• Development owned what could ship, and when.
• Logistics owned what the store could promise once someone pressed buy.

Every design decision had to survive all three.

Four kinds of work, one team

Over nine months the work came in four shapes, often at the same time.

Each shape needed a different kind of judgment. A revamp rewards structure. A checkout rewards ruthlessness. A regional adaptation rewards restraint, because the fastest way to break a flow that works is to translate it word for word. A launch rewards speed.

How I led it

I turned the backlog into a severity list. With seven markets and four workstreams, everything could look urgent. Sorting issues by severity, high and medium first, gave the team and the client one shared answer to "what next", and it is how we closed more than 100 of them.

I made myself the point where the three functions met. Marketing, development and logistics each had valid reasons to pull a design in a different direction. My job was to bring those reasons into the same conversation early, so the team designed once instead of three times.

I adapted, I did not copy. When the discovery flow moved to another region, the structure that worked travelled with it. The key visuals, the messaging and the language were localised, so the flow felt native to its new market rather than imported.

I kept a team of three focused. A small team across seven markets breaks if it chases every request. Severity decided the order, the renewal cycle decided the pace, and each quarter had to end with work the client could see.

What the renewals said

• Renewed every quarter for nine months. In a model where the client could walk away every three months, they kept choosing to continue.
• More than 100 high and medium severity UX and UI issues closed across the engagement.
• Seven markets served by three designers, working with more than fifteen stakeholders across marketing, development and logistics.
• Recognised and rewarded. My leadership on the account was recognised and incentivised, on the strength of the client continuing to renew.

What this engagement taught me about e-commerce leadership

• Trust in e-commerce is earned in quarters, not launches. A rolling contract makes every quarter a launch.
• Severity is a leadership tool. It turns a long list of complaints into a plan everyone can agree to.
• Localise the surface, keep the structure. What makes a flow work can travel. What makes it feel native has to be rebuilt for each market.
• The stakeholders who never see the design still shape it. Logistics decides what checkout can promise. Bring them in before the screens, not after.

The client's name is withheld under the terms of the engagement.