Scientific Precision Meets Digital Efficiency: TrippNT's Odoo Evolution

Location/Region: Kansas City, Missouri
Industry: Manufacturing
Apps implemented: Website, Sales, eCommerce, Email Marketing, Accounting, Inventory, Contacts
Software Replaced: SAGE, Squarespace
Number of users: 10 users
Company size: 30 employees
Hosting type: Odoo.sh

When it comes to modern advancements, the scientific and medical fields are two of the most instrumental industries making an impact. Because of their unique and highly regulated natures, these two fields often require products designed with the needs of each respective industry in mind. TrippNT, based in Kansas City, Missouri, manufactures organizational products specifically for the scientific and medical spaces.

TrippNT was founded in 1993 by Susan Tripp, a chemist who needed organizational equipment for her science lab. When she couldn’t find what she needed on the market, she asked her husband, Bob, to build it. Thus began TrippNT. Today, 31 years later, the company manufactures and sells products directly to consumers through its website. These organizational items include pipette holders, glove dispensers, suture shelves, and lab hooks, among others– all products critical to the efficient operations of the medical and scientific spaces. TrippNT’s pieces are designed with materials that are extremely easy to clean, making them ideal for lab environments. 

With humble beginnings tracing back to Susan and Bob’s basement, TrippNT has continued to grow and thrive during its three decades in business. With a bright future ahead, the company was specifically looking for business management software that it could grow with for many more years to come– enter, Odoo.

TrippNT used various platforms over the years to manage business operations, including SAGE a while back. Directly prior to using Odoo, the business was using Squarespace for e-commerce and customer communications. Jason Ayers, CFO and Vice President of IT and Finance, says that Squarespace was very limiting in terms of what it was capable of and, therefore, what TrippNT could accomplish with it. He explains that the company likes to be able to tweak or customize the software it’s using to fit its specific needs, and with Squarespace, this simply wasn't possible. This lack of flexibility led TrippNT to begin considering alternative solutions for the website and e-commerce side of its business– particularly, one that the company could see itself growing with. 

Jason says that they spent about a full year researching other software options before finally coming across Odoo. While Odoo’s e-commerce functionalities were initially what drew the company in, TrippNT quickly realized that Odoo is a full-fledged ERP system with huge potential for them to grow with. Jason points out that the company ultimately decided on Odoo because not only was the software highly customizable, but it was also extremely user-friendly. He explains that TrippNT has developers on its staff who would appreciate the open-source nature of Odoo and the ability to write their own code, while the sales and customer service teams would appreciate the intuitiveness and straightforwardness of Odoo’s database. Having team members with varying degrees of experience and familiarity with ERP software, both of these factors contributed greatly to Jason’s confidence in Odoo being the right choice for the company. 

At the moment, TrippNT primarily uses Odoo for its website and e-commerce side of the business. While the company isn’t at a point yet where it's ready to use the software in its entirety, Jason says they are excited to expand operations down the road into Odoo’s platform.  What was so appealing about Odoo was its huge range of functionalities and the potential it showed for future growth. Jason explains that TrippNT’s hope is to eventually start moving other tasks outside of the website and e-commerce workflows over to Odoo.

We’re just scratching the surface of all it can do.

In addition to helping the company create the website itself, TrippNT uses functionalities related to the website as well. For example, they utilize the mailing list feature for customers who sign up for the company’s newsletter through the website. For any orders that are made through the website, TrippNT’s salespeople use Odoo’s internal notes and chatter system to discuss information relevant to a particular sales order. Having customer and related sales information all connected within Odoo has been a big plus for TrippNT.

One of Jason’s favorite things about Odoo is the fact that it is both highly customizable and user-friendly. While the system itself is extremely complex in terms of functionality, it is intuitive enough to be used by teams that may not be as familiar with ERP software. For example, Jason says that the company’s in-house graphic designer particularly loves how Odoo’s Website module allows him to customize the business’s site easily despite not being a coder using the in-app website builder. He can change the appearance and design of TrippNT’s product pages with straightforward drag-and-drop boxes.

[Odoo has] customizability on two levels - if you don't know anything, you can customize stuff pretty easily, but if there are deeper things you want to do, you have that ability also.

While TrippNT is still in the early stages of its journey with Odoo, Jason is excited about the software's potential for the company. As the business continues to grow thirty years after its humble beginnings, Odoo is prepared to support it every step of the way.

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