Jonelle Raffino's family-owned startup, South West Trading (soysilk.com), had stirred up demand for its line of yarns made from bamboo, corn and soy fibers, but Raffino couldn't supply it fast enough. The factory wasn't the issue - it could crank out 500 to 800 metric tons of yarn each month. Problem was, Raffino's skeins were stuck somewhere between her manufacturer in China and her warehouse in Phoenix, and she had no easy way to track them down.

Raffino solved her problem by turning to UPS. The UPS facility in Shanghai now combines Raffino's orders from various factories into one container, handles all the customs paperwork, and trucks the goods to Phoenix. In August she added a service that will ship deliveries directly from Shanghai to her distributors in Australia and Britain rather than through Phoenix.

While Raffino won't give revenue figures for her eight-person company, she says it grew 500 percent last year and 45 percent this year. It's also profitable. "Because we've smoothed out this process, we order just what we need when we need it, and that's freed up capital to build the business," says Raffino. This year, for instance, South West Trading launched a line of stuffed animals made with its signature soy-based yarn. -Julie Sloane