Aeropost International receives and ships packages ordered by overseas customers of Amazon and other U.S. businesses.

Consumers love shopping online with Amazon and Zappos, but it's not always easy or even possible to have packages shipped to locations in Latin America and the Caribbean. Aeropost International Services offers shoppers in countries outside the U.S. a way to place orders that are then delivered to the company's Miami facility. Aeropost forwards the packages to their ultimate destination, handling the entire customs process for some 500,000 customers in 44 countries.

On some days between Black Friday and Christmas this year, the company expects to ship more than 60,000 packages out of Miami International Airport. Typically, however, the company handles around 10,000 packages daily at its 180,000-sq.-ft. facility near the airport. Each has its own custom-coded drop ship address, and Aeropost's software and processes efficiently sort all the packages and get them onto airplanes.

Some 150 employees work in Miami, with another nearly 1,000 around the Americas at in-country storefronts and other sites.

The 27-year-old company started as a way for people living in Costa Rica to order items from U.S. catalogs, but today 40% of its business comes from Amazon and Zappos. Shipments have grown rapidly in recent years — last year, sales increased by double digits, and this year, Aeropost moved from a 38,000-sq.-ft. facility to its current one.

Two years ago, Aeropost CEO and founder Jim Fendell set out to make sure Aeropost had the funding it needed to grow and in March sealed a deal with Boston-based NorthBridge for a reported investment of nearly $30 million.

"You can have growth, and you can kill yourself if you don't have the money to put together the team and equipment you need to be able to service that growth,"
he says.