Absolute Aromas · Innovation Update · June 2026

What I've been building

A working tour of the last few months. The new website is taking shape, the product brain that feeds it is built, and a set of tools is quietly removing manual work from the business. Everything here is real and clickable, not a slide deck.

Tip: each tool below is live. Click through and have a poke around.
399
Products in one single source of truth
3,518
Product files migrated and catalogued
486
SKUs structured, priced and ready
8
Tools and platforms built this stretch
The Storefront

Absolute Aromas 3.0

A ground-up, fully custom Shopify build, migrating us off WooCommerce and rebuilt entirely to the brand. The full visual language is now proven across every page type and live in a shared preview, so we can sign off on look and feel before a line of it goes near the real shop.

Tap to enlarge The Rebuild: where the Absolute Aromas website is, shown across page types
All 6 page types live in preview Image-led, brand-true Shopify Online Store 2.0 Quality first, no rushed launch

The Foundation

The Product Intelligence Database

One structured home for everything we know about every product, built to feed every channel at once: the website, the AI assistant, Amazon, the trade catalogue, and the Cin7 move down the line. Get the data right once and everything downstream gets easier. This is the unglamorous layer that makes the clever stuff possible.

Tap to enlarge The Product Intelligence Database: 399 products, 486 SKUs, 3,518 files across seven connected tables
399 products 486 SKUs 3,518 files held, not just linked 7 connected tables One source, every channel

The AI Layer

Abbie, and the art of discovery

The flagship idea: help the customer who knows how they want to feel but not which oil to buy. Abbie is the friendly assistant on the site; the Oil Finder is the guided experience behind her. Both are grounded in real aromatherapy data from the product brain, not guesswork, and David's expertise sits as the guardrail on every claim.

Tap to enlarge The Discovery Advantage: guided, intelligent, human product discovery

The Operating Toolkit

Tools that take the manual work away

Smaller, sharper builds aimed at the day-to-day: the spreadsheets, the chasing, the approvals. Each one replaces something slow and fiddly with something quick and always current. Built to run without me standing over them.

Linn

linndoesntwork · product knowledge
Live

A clean window onto the product brain. Search any oil and see, or edit, its description, directions and ingredients with the real imagery alongside. The name is a gentle dig at Linnworks.

  • Every product, searchable by name or code
  • Edit copy in place, no spreadsheet wrangling
  • AI helper and Scienza built in

Outstanding Orders

order tracking
Live

The end of the spreadsheet with the bright red rows. Every outstanding order in one always-current view, sorted and ready to chase, so nothing quietly slips through.

  • Replaces a fragile manual spreadsheet
  • One live view, always up to date
  • Sorted and chase-ready

Scienza

tasks, approvals & agents
Live · prototype

A to-do list, an approvals desk and an agent manager merged into one. Built to delegate work across the team, and to let our AI agents ask for a yes before they act on anything that matters.

  • Today, all tasks, projects and a noticeboard
  • Human sign-off before agents proceed
  • Doubles as a team delegation manager

The Chain

procurement
Built · hosting next

Procurement, de-spreadsheeted. Reorder lines with stock, minimums and what's already on order in one place, plus a clean draft to submitted to approved ordering flow. Currently a local build, ready to put online.

  • 663 live reorder lines in one screen
  • Stock, minimum and on-order at a glance
  • Built-in approval trail for every order
Ready to host on request

TekStak

tech stack OS
Live

A live map of our entire tech stack, mine and the company's. What we use, what it costs, who owns it and how it all connects, with a clean trail for budgeting, approvals and decisions. The single place to answer "what are we actually paying for, and why".

  • Every tool and subscription in one canvas
  • Monthly spend by personal, team and shared
  • Decision log and approvals built in
  • Budget view and export for finance

Foundations & What's Next

The plumbing, and the next wave

Less visible, just as important. The access and integrations being put in place now are what unlock the automation and reporting that comes next.

Google Drive & Google Ads API

Sorted

Registered as a Google developer with API access approved. This opens the door to automated ad reporting and management, and a clean pipeline between our Drive and the product brain.

Vasco, fully loaded

In progress

Our Amazon performance dashboard, loaded and ready to go. Good inroads made; now waiting on Amazon developer access, with the identity verification step in train. Last piece before it's fully live.