Since opening their first shop in 2008, Georgetown Cupcake founders Katherine Kallinis Berman and Sophie Kallinis LaMontagne have seen their business skyrocket. The sisters, stars of the hit TLC series DC Cupcakes, have since added stores in Boston, New York, Los Angeles and Bethesda, Md., as well as a nationwide bakery and shipping center in Sterling, Va. But business growth is never without its challenges....

1. 8 COMPASS FA L L 2 0 1 4
SUCCESS STORY
GEORGETOWN
CUPCAKE
Bakes and ships gourmet cupcakes.
Founded: 2008
Based: Washington, D.C.
Employees: 400
Website: georgetowncupcake.com
Sweet
taste of
S
ince opening their first
shop in 2008, Georgetown
Cupcake founders Katherine
Kallinis Berman and Sophie
Kallinis LaMontagne have seen their
business skyrocket. The sisters, stars of
the hit TLC series DC Cupcakes, have
since added stores in Boston, New
York, Los Angeles and Bethesda, Md.,
as well as a nationwide bakery and
shipping center in Sterling, Va.
But business growth is never with-
out its challenges. Burdened by ship-
ping-related labor time, Georgetown
Cupcake switched to UPS from
another carrier to help streamline the
process and cut labor costs in half.
A SIMPLE RECIPE TO SAVE TIME
“The order management process
we had previously required us to
Gourmet cupcake
retailer Georgetown
Cupcake slices
fulfillment costs
with UPS.
BY DONNA BARRETT LONGINO
Georgetown Cupcake’s
Sophie Kallinis
LaMontagne and
Katherine Kallinis
Berman
do everything twice,” says Stephen
LaMontagne, CFO at Georgetown
Cupcake. “We had to print customer
orders from our own backend soft-
ware and print customer labels from a
different system. Then, a person had
to match them.”
To complicate matters, a lot of
Georgetown Cupcake’s orders are
corporate gifts. “We have large com-
panies sending hundreds of different
cupcakes to hundreds of different
customers throughout the country,”
LaMontagne explains. “We had to
print out gift cards; then, match up all
three things – customer order, ship-
ping label and gift card – manually.”
UPS analyzed Georgetown
Cupcake’s order management process
and recommended the company
implement OzLINK,®
a third-party
CHRISCRISMAN
SUCCESS

2. FA L L 2 0 1 4 COMPASS 9
Challenge
Georgetown Cupcake
needed to streamline
its labor-intensive order
management and fulfillment
process for shipping gour-
met cupcakes nationwide.
Solution
UPS Ready®
software,
OzLINK,®
automates
Georgetown Cupcake’s
order management and
fulfillment process to
reduce errors and increase
labor efficiency.
Choosing the right technology can make your business more efficient, save
money and give you more time to focus on customer service and product
development. UPS Ready®
solutions are third-party technology products
designed to streamline processes, reduce errors and share data across
your company, while providing you UPS shipping, tracking and returns
functionality.
You can use the UPS Ready program to:
l Find approved vendor solutions that fit your particular business needs –
everything from e-commerce order management and fulfillment to ware-
house inventory management to accounting/financial solutions.
l Find UPS Ready solutions that will run on a PC-based or Mac-based system.
l Be assured that no matter what UPS Ready solution you choose, UPS func-
tionality has already been built in, so you can be up and running in minutes.
Ready, set,
solutions!
software solution offered through the
UPS Ready®
program. UPS Ready gives
customers access to third-party tech-
nology solutions that integrate with
UPS services.
OzLINK streamlined Georgetown
Cupcake’s order management and
fulfillment operation into a seamless
process. According to LaMontagne, “It
reduced errors and removed two lay-
ers of our old, manual process, which
saves a lot of time and labor expense.
We had two people sorting through
orders and now we have only one
person who does that, enabling us to
devote more staff to customer out-
reach and order fulfillment.”
UPS also eliminated the need to
separate air and ground packages
since one UPS driver collects both.
“Not having to sort packages into
air and ground helps our efficiency,”
LaMontagne says. “The same UPS
drivers service our location and
they understand how to handle our
product and the uniqueness of a
Georgetown Cupcake gift.”
UPS also delivers very personalized
customer service to the Sterling cen-
ter – something the gourmet cupcake
retailer relates to and appreciates.
“Our UPS account representative,
Marla Miller, proactively calls us,
particularly during our busiest days,
to make sure that packages are getting
out, and even comes to our facility
during these hectic periods and lends
a hand,” LaMontagne says.
PERFECT PACKAGING:
THE ICING ON THE CAKE
Georgetown Cupcake began ship-
ping nationally in 2009 after the sis-
ters discovered that customers were
coming into their store, buying cup-
cakes and shipping them on their own.
Today, the company ships hundreds
of packages each day and thousands
on busy holidays like Valentine’s Day
and Mother’s Day.
“When we started shipping
nationally, we wanted to recreate the
Georgetown Cupcake store experi-
ence,” Berman says. The retailer
worked with UPS to refine its packag-
ing to reduce the weight of each ship-
ment by a pound while maintaining
the distinct look and quality of the
Georgetown Cupcake experience.
“The shipping experience is an
extension of our retail experience,”
Sophie LaMontagne says. “We wanted
a business partner who stays ahead of
the curve to help us stay at the fore-
front of our industry. UPS really has
their pulse on the future.”
For a complete list of
UPS Ready Solutions,
visit ups.com/upsready.
ROBUST THIRD-PARTY
SYSTEMS INCLUDE
UPS FUNCTIONALITY.