Crabtree & Evelyn global chief experience officer Lee Woodard says the retailer is working under the principal “if in doubt, blow it up” to overhaul its digital platform.

Speaking at location technology supplier’s Yext’s conference in London, Woodard said the international beauty retailer is “restarting the business from scratch” in order to increase its relevance in the competitive beauty sector.

The beauty specialist, which operates in countries including the UK and the US, is in the process of centralising of its global digital platforms.

“The retailer has cut down on its third-party partnerships and brought as much of the overhaul process in-house as possible”

“Historically we’ve been very fragmented and no region knew what another was doing, so we’re trying to centralise more,” said Woodard.

The retailer began its overhaul at the beginning of this year and is slated to be completed by October.

Woodard said the retailer has cut down on its third-party partnerships and brought as much of the overhaul process in-house as possible in order to drive efficiencies in its digital overhaul.

Crabtree & Evelyn has partnered with Yext as part of this online replatforming in order to offer shoppers up-to-date information on local store opening times.

Woodward joined the beauty retailer in November last year, and planned its online overhaul over a six-week period.

He said that in order to decide what changes needed to be made, the retailer operated under the principal of “if we were relaunching this brand on Kickstarter, what would we want to do?”

“I didn’t want to see three months of powerpoint presentations before we got to work,” said Woodward, adding that the principal of “if in doubt, blow it up” has become essential to the retailer’s strategic decisions.

The retailer is also planning to launch its new store concept in London before Christmas.