Our largest digital transformation project to date
Case Study
If your brand growth strategy is to open and transact in new markets worldwide, but your e-commerce platform doesn’t offer the required flexibility or backend systems to handle your vision, developing that legacy system can be a costly and frustrating experience.
That was the situation for the renowned ethical retailer, The Body Shop, when they revisited their e-commerce proposition to transform their global business in 2019.
Realising that the existing platform was no longer fit for purpose, the brief was to initiate a complete overhaul that would reimagine the brand’s online presence and empower the business to have more control over their key promotional, merchandising and customer-focused content.
Having explored and called time on the development of new systems using a pioneering headless architecture with an existing partner, The Body Shop turned to KPS to rescue their ailing transformation project in Spring 2019.
Setting a target for the first deliverable by Black Friday 2020 – a tight turnaround for any project of this scale, not least one hampered by the effects of a global pandemic – KPS challenged the brief with their market-leading consultative approach.
To get the project over the line, the team from KPS worked seamlessly with a whole host of fantastic partners, including Adyen, Amplience, Monetate and BazaarVoice.
"The close-knit working relationships we have motivates me daily. I can see the hard work, cooperative spirit and supportiveness that shines through every one of you daily. Most times I cannot differentiate between who is a The Body Shop or KPS employee. Everyone supports each other and gets on with the job", says Maryann Kuranga, IT Programme Director at The Body Shop.
This collaborative team developed an entirely new global cloud-based scalable e-commerce platform, providing a single view of the customer and solid foundations for future growth and agility.
Headless architecture and seamless backend integration mean that The Body Shop can now publish their own dynamic web content, giving the business the control and input they need to drive their rebranding vision forward.
In a time when retail was really coming under pressure, we not only launched a realigned and fully functional new global online presence – with a stable, rolling launch of 16 transactional, mobile-first websites worldwide.
We also enabled The Body Shop to adapt to an ever-changing consumer landscape with stunning new branding and a host of new features, to build a gratifying customer experience for their socially-conscious audience.
The improved functionality handled the peak Black Friday demand perfectly – with dayto-day performance/reliability now coasting at 99.9% uptime. The new platform also enabled acceleration in a broader feature set, greater personalisation and stronger conversion rate optimisation.
Web traffic has increased by nearly 50%, drop-off rates have reduced and conversion up by a 25% on the previous year. The Body Shop’s emotional trend line has been curving upwards since the launch, and with our mobile-first approach, they also hit 65 for post-purchase NPS for the first time ever on mobile. The new site is now live in over 60 countries and has helped The Body Shop realise triple-digit online growth
Retail Partnership of the Year – Retail System Awards
Best Website Launch or Relaunch Ecommerce Awards for Excellence – e Commerce Awards
Digital Transformation Project – IT World Gold Globee
Best Large Enterprise Digital Project - Digital Technology Leaders Awards 2021
We are immensely proud of the work we’ve done with The Body Shop and thrilled that it has received such a great response from the industry. Transforming The Body Shop’s digital customer journey was no small feat. The Body Shop and KPS seamlessly delivered an international rollout of 16 websites, driving more e-commerce sales than the company has ever seen. Working with the Body Shop Team is a true partnership, congratulations to everyone involved.
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