Over the past three years, mineral skincare and makeup products have grown increasingly popular. During this surge, Kristen Bell, founder of aromatherapy cosmetics company Aromaleigh (aromaleigh.com), has seen a huge upswing in her business.

While increased business seems like great news, it often strains operations. This was the case with Aromaleigh's shipping and fulfillment system. Back in 2002, the company shipped between 140 and 200 packages per month. Today, Aromaleigh sends close to 1,200 packages per month - almost 50 per day.

When Aromaleigh first became a Yahoo! Small Business merchant in 1998, Kristen shipped via UPS. As her shipping volume increased, label making became a bit cumbersome. In 2001, Kristen switched to another shipper. Earlier this year, Kristen heard about the integration of UPS OnLine Tools® into Yahoo! Merchant Solutions. Interested in the new shipping services, Kristen upgraded to a Yahoo! Merchant Solutions Standard account.

Now, at the Aromaleigh online store, shoppers select their products, enter their address information at checkout, and select a UPS shipping service level. Customers immediately see the cost of the product and the selected shipping service, as well as the guaranteed number of days for delivery.

Using information entered by the customer, Kristen can generate shipping labels from the Yahoo! Merchant Solutions order management system (without ever leaving the same browser window) in as few as two clicks. After an order is fulfilled, the customer automatically receives a confirmation email with all the order details and a UPS tracking number. The integrated order management and shipping system ensures that customers have all of the information they need if questions arise, and reduces time-consuming customer inquiries.

Giving consumers the ability to track packages and see precise rates based on their shipping choices lends credibility to Kristen's business, makes the Aromaleigh e-commerce store more customer friendly, and positions the company as a reliable online merchant. In addition, with an accurate system that eliminates disparity, the company saves money it may have once lost when it offered only a flat shipping rate based on the dollar amount of a purchase.

With integrated UPS services, Yahoo! merchants can save time and improve business processes. For example, with the new service, Aromaleigh can process two shipments per minute, where it once took the company five minutes to process a single order. Add up all those minutes, and you save a significant amount of time. And for Kristen, more efficient processes mean more time to apply to a true work/life balance.

"Buying extra hours has very special meaning for me," she says. "I am a mother of a two-year-old, and I was absolutely thrilled when integrated shipping came out. I knew it would allow me to spend more time with my family, and having more time to put into my professional and personal life is important."

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