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By Paula Pyzik Scott

A local online business, SuperCuteDresses.com, recently hit a major milestone in its development with the assistance of the Bluffton Post Office.

The Icon met Luke Ringger, who owns the business with his wife Kariann, at the Bluffton Post Office to see a celebration with Post Master Jared Caprella and Tom Pennington, a Territory Representative for USPS.

The milestone? Shipping 10,000 packaging in 2024, which Ringger notes was done “flawlessly.” And that was with just 9 months under their belts. Rather than celebrate an odd number at the end of the year–kind of like waiting for your car odometer to turn over 100,000–he chose to present the U.S. Post Office representative with a plaque expressing the company’s gratitude at the 10K mark. ▶︎

Super Cute Dresses made its first sale in October 2022. After that time, the family moved to Bluffton and were bringing packages to the post office in a little wagon. Their products include nursing access and non-nursing dresses, girls dresses and boys t-shirts.

Ringger says nursing dresses is their niche market and when they first started he told his wife, “we’re either going to make a lot of money or go broke!” The business’s success has allowed the Ringgers to create a partnership with a convent in Minsk, Belarus; with a matching $50,000 grant they are helping build a facility for the elderly and homeless.

At first, Super Cute Dresses packages were processed just like any individual piece of mail. Ringger brought them daily and they were scanned individually. When Caprella saw that the shipments were really trending, he introduced them to the Manifest Mailing System (MMS), an automated process that documents postage and fees for multiple pieces in a mailing. Ringer discovered that his website software included this feature and they have since processed close to 1,000 packages on a single day. “USPS is where it’s at!” exclaims Ringger.

Caprella says he works with a number of smaller businesses in the area and that clothing is a common product, “everyone wants clothing and shipping is low.” 

If you need to learn about shipping for a business, Caprella can assist with smaller arrangements and Pennington steps in for larger volume needs. Caprella says that Pennington provides “all the tips and tricks you need to be successful.”

Ringger quipped that “to be realistic, we should have taken the photos at the loading dock. Once you reach a certain volume, they make you come in the back”--where Post Office staff can assist with unloading.

The Bluffton Post Office is located at 132 S Main St, Bluffton, OH 45817. Phone 800-275-8777.

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