Nancy Edmonds Hanson

More online ordering means that more returns are inevitably. Thanks to The UPS Store, sending back those too-small shirts or linens in unexpected colors is easier than ever – as easy as taking a spin down Main Avenue, where Heidi Gustafson’s shop will handle it all for you.

The growth of online shopping has been a boon to the store, which Gustafson bought in 2017. “Online shopping has increased a lot, especially during the pandemic, and the way returns are processed has completely changed. This business looks different now even from when I got into it seven years ago, and more changes are always on the way. We have to keep up and stay ahead of the curve.

“Our goal is to make returns – all kinds of shipping, really – as easy, simple and quick as possible,” she explains. “It’s a big business here in the store. Customers can bring in the product they’re sending back with the return code, and we’ll do everything else for you.”

Amazon represents the lion’s share of returns, she concedes, but her national franchise has negotiated similar arrangements with Verizon, Dyson, DirecTV, AT&T and others. “We have between 70 and 100 contracted partners, including the big ones in our area,” she says. “Corporate does a good job with these partnerships with reputable brands, and they’re always looking for more.”

The UPS Store marked an unexpected turn in Gustafson’s career when she decided to open her first store in Detroit Lakes in 2016. She had answered 911 calls at the Red River Regional Dispatch Center and worked as a medical transcriptionist for two clinics while raising her two daughters, Megan and Marisa. Then a friend – now her husband – mentioned taking a look at The UPS Store. “Jeff works in industrial engineering for UPS,” she mentions, “so he was aware of how the business was growing.

“We moved to Main Avenue 10 months ago because we wanted to add more services,” Gustafson explains. “We just outgrew our old space on Eighth Street,” where the 19-year-old business shared a building with Affinity Plus Credit Union. The store reopened last fall in the former location of Camelot Cleaners at 625 Main.

The franchise store – one of about 5,000 across the nation – got its start handling shipments sent via United Parcel Service, the ubiquitous global shipping corporation. “We partner with UPS, but we are a completely separate business,” the owner emphasizes. “That’s the biggest misunderstanding about us. Ninety percent of the calls we get have something to do with deliveries – and we have nothing to do with that end of the business.”

Instead, the independent franchise helps customers pack and ship whatever they want to send on its way, stocking boxes and packing materials of countless sizes and types. Shipments packaged by the UPS-certified staff are guaranteed to arrive at their destinations unbroken and undamaged.

While UPS is right up there in its name, the store’s staff provides the same services for packages customers want sent by the US Postal Service. They rent a bank of 84 USPO-approved mailboxes and lockers, too, and sell postage stamps and other postal options, including priority mail.

Unbeknownst to many who connect its name with cardboard boxes, Gustafson says, the store has added the gamut of print production services. Her daughter Megan Biggerstaff is the store’s print specialist, providing graphic design services. In addition to printing brochures, invitations, business cards and yard signs, the company offers laminating and binding, makes rubber stamps, rents computer time with internet access, and provides notary services. It also carries basic office supplies.

The UPS Store is open from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. weekdays and from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday.