When you’re running a business that brings “nostalgia by the container load,” efficiency isn’t a luxury: it’s survival. For NatCorp Import & Export, a leading importer of South African groceries in Canada, managing hundreds of products across different expiry dates and global shipments was no easy feat. That changed when they turned to Odoo, and found a cost-effective, scalable solution that transformed their inventory control and sales workflows almost overnight.
Founded in 1993 and now based in Toronto, NatCorp Import & Export specializes in delivering a taste of home to the South African diaspora across Canada. Today, the company supplies both small mom-and-pop retailers and a growing list of national chains with hard-to-find groceries (from maize and traditional sweets to complex spice mixes designed for outdoor barbecuing).
The company’s product catalog is vast: over 600 unique SKUs, with more than half of those being regularly reordered, and highly specialized. The emotional connection to their products is what drives NatCorp’s commitment to quality, freshness, and reliability in every shipment.
"As an immigrant, you long for things you grew up with: we’re selling that feeling more than anything else."
From Patchwork Systems to Data Chaos
Before discovering Odoo, NatCorp was juggling a mix of disjointed tools. Accounting was handled through QuickBooks, but it fell short in tracking inventory. For that, they leaned on a custom-built system using Excel and Microsoft Access, manually importing sales data from QuickBooks into Access.
This dual-system approach introduced a mountain of inefficiencies and opportunities for error. “We had to constantly cross-check and update both systems. It created a lot of room for mistakes,” Wegner explained. With a lean team of four, the manual workload was unsustainable. The company briefly explored enterprise-grade tools like Microsoft Dynamics, but quickly found the implementation costs were beyond reach for a small business.
"Inventory management tools are easy to find. But when you add expiration tracking and shipment-level detail, the costs skyrocket. Odoo was the first platform that checked every box, affordably."
A New Chapter with Odoo
Wegner first heard of Odoo through a local IT contact in Vancouver. Though that company didn’t use Odoo themselves, they recommended it after hearing about NatCorp’s struggles. Wegner was immediately drawn to Odoo’s modular approach, flexible implementation, and the promise of integrating sales, inventory, and eventually accounting: all in one place.
Odoo’s Inventory and Sales modules are now central to NatCorp’s operations. With each shipment containing goods with multiple expiration dates, tracking “lots” tied to specific best-before dates was a must. Thanks to support from their Odoo implementation specialist, Abdullah, they found a workaround that made this possible, and transformative.
Now, when a customer asks about a product’s availability or expiry date, Wegner can find the answer instantly, even from across the country.
“Before, I’d have to physically go into the warehouse or look through old invoices. Now, I just log into Odoo and it’s all there.”
The ability to upload customer orders from Excel directly into Odoo’s sales module has also saved hours of manual data entry. “We used to input orders line by line. Now, I upload and it creates the sales order instantly. It’s been a massive time-saver,” Wegner shared.
Other wins include:
Real-time remote visibility of stock and expiration data, which is critical for a multi-location operation.
Robust import/export functionality, allowing smooth integration of external data.
A more intuitive (albeit initially complex) Contact Management system, linking businesses and individual stakeholders seamlessly.
While the team is still learning the system and adapting to Odoo’s multi-step sales-to-invoice process, Wegner acknowledges that the logic behind it has grown on them. “It seemed slower at first, but now I see the structure and control it brings to the process.”
"We’re not there yet, but I can already see how, six months down the line, we’ll uncover efficiencies we couldn’t imagine before."
Scaling Smarter: What's Next for NatCorp
Looking ahead, NatCorp has big plans for Odoo. First up is completing the migration of their accounting function into the platform, finally eliminating data duplication and streamlining financial reporting.
Next, Wegner is eyeing Odoo’s Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and eCommerce integration. Wegner also recently launched a new website and plans to build out online ordering capabilities that can feed directly into Odoo, creating a more seamless digital experience for clients.
For any business importing high-volume, perishable, or multi-variant goods, Odoo offers a level of control, transparency, and flexibility that’s tough to beat, especially for small- and medium-sized players with complex needs.
If your company is struggling with fragmented systems or inefficient inventory management, take a page from NatCorp’s book, and give Odoo a serious look. The platform may not be magic, but for companies like NatCorp, it’s proving to be the next best thing.
