WAIMEA — The Waimea Post Office gets a fair amount of traffic, but one patron it can always count on is Aunty Lilikoi. Lori Cardenas, owner of the Waimea retailer and wholesaler, estimates the company sends between 60 and 70
WAIMEA — The Waimea Post Office gets a fair amount of traffic, but one patron it can always count on is Aunty Lilikoi.
Lori Cardenas, owner of the Waimea retailer and wholesaler, estimates the company sends between 60 and 70 packages through the post office every week. Over the holidays, that number jumped to about 50 every day.
“They definitely add to the business and it’s always growing a bit every year,” said Bill Cadow, sales and service associate with the Waimea Post Office. “That’s a good thing that people seem to be ordering more and more each year.”
Cardenas said Cadow has been “dealing with all of our boxes since we moved to our Waimea location back in 2002.”
But Cadow said keeping up with Aunty Lilikoi’s flow of packages isn’t difficult, because the business has everything pre-labeled with shipping information before they deliver it to the post office.
“Everything’s already labeled and ready to go and they drop it off here,” Cadow said. “It’s a timesaver for us.”
Shipping really got cracking for her company around 2005, when USPS introduced flat-rate boxes, Cardenas said.
“Since then, we’ve been crazy busy,” Cardenas said. “It’s cheaper for our customers because our packages are heavy.”
As an example, the company’s best-selling product is the passion fruit wasabi mustard. Each bottle weighs 10 ounces, and 12 of them fit into a flat-rate mailer.
“That gives you an idea of how much money our customers can save by allowing us to do (the shipping) for them,” Cardenas said. “People that come in our shop, they don’t have to worry about trying to pack glass jars into their suitcases because it’s economical to mail.”
In combination with the introduction of flat-rate mailers, Cardenas sends out a newsletter seven times a year, and now she has built her base up to 77,000 subscribers. Many of those are repeat customers or visitors who stopped by the store while on vacation. The newsletter keeps Aunty Lilikoi’s products on their radar.
Cardenas bought Aunty Lilikoi in 2001 on a wish and a prayer. She says she’d never made a single jar of jelly before purchasing the company from Tom Cassidy.
“I bought five recipes and a trade name,” Cardenas said. “We went through a couple of sessions and (Cassidy) took us through all five recipes. Then I knew the basics, but there was a learning curve.”
Now, the company has about 20 different jelly recipes, all of which are made in the shop — which offers free sampling — and has won numerous awards. Cardenas has three full-time staff members working alongside her in order to make the magic happen.
“We do everything from manufacturing the products to taking care of all the mail orders,” Cardenas said. “We’re busy, but we stay out of trouble.”
