Green and Clean: The Unscented Company's Eco-Friendly Efficiency Boost with Odoo

In 2024, people are more health-conscious than ever before, whether it’s their own personal health and well-being or the health and well-being of the planet. Many search for ways to make an impact in the environmental movement but find that the answers can be both overwhelming and lackluster. It often feels almost impossible to make an attainable change that will actually make a difference– which is exactly why Anie Rouleau founded The Unscented Company.

The Unscented Company, launched in 2016 and based in Montreal, Canada, sells a complete line of natural home and body care products that are biodegradable and exclusively fragrance-free. This includes everyday products such as shampoo, conditioner, body wash, laundry detergent, and dish soap. 100% of the products that The Unscented Company sells have a solid, or plastic-free, equivalent, as well as a refillable version, encouraging consumers to choose more environmentally-conscious and health-conscious options when shopping for their home or personal care. At an affordable price point and available both online and at select stores, Anie wants to influence the masses to make more thoughtful choices and change the illusion that “scented” equals “clean.” 

While many people may first think of plastic water bottles and straws, soap companies are actually one of the worst offenders when it comes to negative environmental impacts due to single-use plastics. This knowledge drove Anie to get into the field because, as she sees it, it’s one of the best industries to get into to make the greatest difference. She wanted to start a company that would add value to the world and have a positive impact on not only the individual consumer’s health, but also the planet as a whole. 

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The more I grow, the better I am for the environment.

For the past four years, The Unscented Company has been among the top 400 fastest-growing companies in Canada, finding tremendous success in its mission. With such important goals in mind, Anie and her company needed business software that could match her high ambitions and continuous growth. After struggling with disconnection and difficulties with order tracking, The Unscented Company turned to Odoo for a comprehensive solution to its business woes.

The Unscented Company’s typical workflow when it comes to their products involves a lot of ins and outs. While the company doesn't own any of the manufacturing process, and instead works with contract sellers, it purchases and stores all of the components before manufacturing. This includes items such as labels, bottles, and caps that they then send to their contracted fillers along with the raw “ingredients” of the products. The products are then assembled by the contracted fillers. Anie’s warehouse receives the finished goods back, and her team picks and packs products before shipping them out to customers from there.

This unique process was difficult to track and manage with The Unscented Company’s previous system, which Anie explains was just the accounting application SAGE, and a little bit of Excel on the side. While its accounting features were satisfactory, SAGE wasn’t connected in the way that Anie needed her business software to be as her business found increasing success and growth. She’d find herself having to ask three customer service people to come in just to enter orders:

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It was a catastrophe. I definitely had good accounting, although inventory I would write-off at the end of the year because I was not managing my inventory. As I grew, all the Shopify, my website, was not connected, so there was a lot of entry done by customer service. It was very labor intensive. For me, I could not imagine growing my business on SAGE.

Anie knew that the way she was managing her business operations was not sustainable, especially as her company was exponentially growing. SAGE and Excel simply couldn’t keep up. She began to explore alternative options very thoroughly, spending almost three years evaluating quotes for various ERP systems. 

Finally, in 2021, Anie decided on Odoo because “the bottom line is, there’s only one system that works– Odoo.” In addition to Odoo’s competitive pricing model and overall integrated nature, the option to work with an Odoo Partner for implementation was extremely appealing to Anie. With Odoo Partner E3K’s help and a lot of Odoo video tutorials, The Unscented Company was fully launched with Odoo within four months:

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We did only one month of parallel– so on SAGE and on Odoo. After four months, everything was fully working perfectly. The best experience I had implementing a new system. There was absolutely no difficulty. It was a very good experience, actually.

Due to E3K’s continued support, the transition was seamless, and The Unscented Company was equipped with Odoo’s comprehensive ERP system to tackle its evolving needs.

The positive impact of Odoo has been tangible for Anie and her company. After launching in 2021 with the software, The Unscented Company has gone from $100,000 in online sales to $1.2 million due to the connectivity that Odoo provides. They were able to grow their B2C business seamlessly, and the write-off for their inventory is less than 1%. Odoo’s system overall gave the company better numbers, Anie explained.

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We also have better integration. We do not have anything on parallel that people own on their desktops– everything is in Odoo. From product information to customer contacts, we use CRM, we let go of Slack and use Discussion, we communicate a lot with our suppliers directly from Odoos so we have less emails. The connectivity with Shopify and our website, EDI, SPS Commerce, UPS for all the shipping… {it} has been absolute MAGIC.

Beyond the overall integration that Odoo provides The Unscented Company, Anie finds the scheduling features for tasks to be “absolutely essential to keep track on your to-do list” rather than tracking things manually on paper. Other Odoo features such as product costing and bill of materials have also proven to be very beneficial for the business. Finally, the general user-friendliness of Odoo’s interface has made the team’s constant and frequent use of the system all the more successful.

Now, three years into her company’s journey with Odoo, Anie is not only happy with how the ERP system has benefitted The Unscented Company but is excitedly looking ahead to future possibilities together. With Odoo handling things such as order processing, internal communication, and day-to-day tasks, Anie and her team can focus on their bigger-picture passion– the health of people and the world they inhabit.