Capital investment helps fulfillment company fulfill its potential 

Shirley Moore's USA Fulfillment was able to upgrade to a new headquarters, with help from UPS Capital.

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Great-grandmother Shirley Moore, 75, has more lipsticks and bras within her reach on any given day than a household full of teenage girls. The cosmetics and lingerie don't stay at her premises long, however. They're part of the warehouse inventory at USA Fulfillment, the company Moore started in 1983 after going into the fulfillment business five years earlier to help raise her six children.

Today, a staff of more than 80 fill orders and ship the makeup and undergarments from catalogs and department stores to customers across the country using UPS Next Day Air^®, UPS 2nd Day Air^® and UPS Ground. And what started as merely a job has turned into professional and even personal fulfillment for Moore.

"I love my work," Moore says. "I thoroughly enjoy what I do. It's probably more challenging than anything I've ever done, but I love it."

Learning the ropes
The business started small, when Moore was in her late 40s. A friend asked whether she might be interested in working from home, taking and filling customer orders.

"I didn't understand the first thing he said, but I knew I could learn it," says Moore. At the time, Moore and her husband were facing growing bills from raising their six children, so the extra income sounded appealing. Plus, she would be able to work from home.

Soon, Moore was packing fishing lures and medical kits for various companies. She packed toys and underwear and for a while, she packed an especially familiar product – baby bottles. She timed herself to see how many bottles she could pack within a minute. Then she would try to set a new record the next minute.

Initially, Moore filled orders and packed boxes from inventory she kept in her home, with UPS as her shipper. Gradually, her house started to become more of a storage depot, and so her employer moved the inventory and Moore to an actual warehouse. There, Moore expanded her skills, learning how to drive a forklift and operate other equipment.

Striking out on her own
In 1983, Moore went into business for herself by starting USA Fulfillment with her husband, son and daughter-in-law. Her company has since grown to 88 employees and her family has expanded, too, growing to 13 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.

In 2006, when Moore easily could have retired, she faced a strategic business decision: Should she try to grow the business, or maintain the status quo? Even at age 74, she knew she wanted to expand; she just wasn't sure how. Moore knew a new warehouse was needed, but she didn't know how to secure the financing. UPS Capital^®, however, did.

"We were surprised to learn about the breadth of financial services provided by UPS Capital," Moore says. "We've always relied on UPS's shipping expertise, so we felt equally confident partnering with the financial experts from UPS Capital."

UPS Capital not only helped the company obtain a U.S. Department of Agriculture loan but helped guide USA Fulfillment to USDA in the first place. The USDA offers loans to small businesses in rural areas.

A better fit
"The USDA loan better suited our financial requirements," says Bob Farrar, the company's chief financial officer. The result? A new 56,000-square-foot building, which includes executive offices and a warehouse.

"The day we cut the ribbon on our new building is the best memory of my 28 years in the fulfillment business," Moore says. Production increased 50 percent, and the new headquarters serves as a showplace, according to Moore.

"Aesthetically, it is a wonderful place to work," Moore says. "More important, we stayed close enough to our old location so that we could retain our existing employees, many of whom walked to work and still can." Given the company's family orientation, it did not want to relocate far from where its employees lived, Moore says.

"Now, in addition to having the best-looking warehouse on Maryland's eastern shores, we kept our family intact," Moore says. "The blessing of UPS helped us get it."