There was a time when you didn’t want your picture to be up in the post office. But today the U.S. Post Office today hangs some new pictures, of the agency’s best customers. One new poster child for the Post Office founded a mail-order company in Iowa that’s grown to a 17-million-dollar business.After starting Parcel Delivery through the Post Office just a year ago they saw 20-percent savings, which were passed on to customers and resulted in setting a sales record last week. Just in the past week, Scott Mooney says Country Supply of Ottumwa shipped six-thousand orders to customers. That’s the kind of report the Post Office likes to hear, and it’s chosen Mooney as one of five winners in its “Real People, Real Success” contest — recognizing small business owners who say the post office helped them become successful. Mooney’s the kind of optimist to spread that message. They started out as a small “tack shop” southeast of Ottumwa and after they’d captured all the local market he wanted to expand, and says the post office came in and helped them get into mail-order. Mooney says they now mail out five-Million catalogues a year. He says they’re all rural, after all, or at least far out in the suburbs. Mooney says they survyed customers years ago and found out the average one has to drive at least 60 miles to the nearest tack shop to buy horse equipment. Today the catalogues and a new website bring in orders for feed, fencing, harness, shampoo, boots, books and more about horses. Mooney appears this morning with officials from the Post Office’s Hawkeye district and officials from the state department of economic development to unveil the new poster, at ten this morning in the lobby of the downtown Des Moines post office.
