Cutting Costs and Complexity: A Custom Odoo Locator

Locator preview

Custom-built locator in Odoo ERP cut costs, optimized procedures, and improved the customer search experience.

Role & Context

As Brand & Marketing Manager at Luonto Furniture, I identified and led the end-to-end replacement of an outdated third-party retailer locator tool. This initiative aligned with our broader goals of increasing operational efficiency and delivering a better customer experience. My cross-functional role spanned solution design, API integration, ERP development, and stakeholder coordination.

The Challenge

We relied on a third-party locator service that required manual synchronization for creating, updating, and removing retailer listings. The process was time-consuming, involved multiple team members, and often resulted in delays or inconsistencies. The tool also failed to reflect real-time data stored in our ERP system and limited our ability to scale or customize.

The Approach

I led the design, development, and implementation of a fully custom retailer locator built within our Odoo ERP instance.

  • Architecture & Data Ownership
    Built the solution around a boolean field in the Odoo Contacts module to define public-facing retail locations. Introduced structured contact records for each store, enabling fine-grained control and real-time data accuracy.

  • Tooling & API Strategy
    Integrated Google Autocomplete and Maps APIs to enable intuitive location search and geolocation features. Developed the front end with JavaScript and managed backend logic with XML-based field configuration within Odoo.

  • Process Integration
    Embedded retail contact creation directly into the customer onboarding workflow. This eliminated the need for redundant manual updates across systems and removed extra handoffs between teams.

  • User Experience
    Designed the interface to allow customers to:

    • Search by address, city, ZIP code, or state in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and more
    • Use one-click geolocation for nearest results
    • View retail partners in list or map view
    • Click through to partner-specific Luonto pages, get directions, or visit the retailer’s website

Key Contributions

  • Designed and launched a custom retailer locator fully integrated with Odoo ERP
  • Replaced a multi-step, manual publishing process with a single-click toggle
  • Built and tested the solution using JavaScript, XML, and Google API services
  • Streamlined the customer setup process to include retail locator publishing
  • Improved UX across devices with flexible, location-aware search functionality
  • Established a scalable and secure API implementation using service accounts

Impact & Results

  • Significant time savings across departments by eliminating redundant data entry
  • Improved data accuracy through ERP-driven single source of truth
  • Faster publishing of retailer locations—now managed by one person in minutes
  • Enhanced customer experience with flexible, intuitive search and navigation
  • Reduced cross-team coordination—retail locator is now self-managed within marketing workflows

Takeaways

  • Integrating systems saves time—connecting marketing tools to operational platforms reduces friction and improves speed
  • Thoughtful internal tooling can outperform off-the-shelf solutions
  • Designing for maintainability is as important as designing for functionality

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