It’s all about location, location, location.

In December 2010, the small Georgetown Cupcake founders were looking for a place to centralize the shipping side of their high-demand cupcake business.

With Sterling’s proximity to Dulles Airport - the shipping hub for FedEx – they found what they were looking for. As a result, the D.C.-based business is booming.

The founders of the small company, sisters Katherine Kallinis and Sophie LaMontagne, have found a distinct niche in the nation’s capitol.

Both lifelong bakers inspired by their grandmothers, Kallinis and LaMontagne opened Georgetown Cupcake in February 2008 as D.C.’s first and only specialty cupcake store.

Their business partnership with shipping company FedEx has blossomed with the opening of their 5,000-square-foot shipping facility in Sterling two years later.

According to the sisters, the Sterling location is the site for the baking of all types of shipping orders that are traveling outside the area, Internet-based or non-Internet-based. Their shipping facility functions the same as their other locations except there is no retail storefront.

Those cupcakes baked at the Sterling location are shipped via overnight FedEx to destinations across the country.

“Our national shipping partner is FedEx and their shipping hub in the D.C. area is Dulles Airport,” Kallinis said. “Our shipping location in Sterling is FedEx’s last pick-up before their packages are loaded on planes at Dulles. Georgetown Cupcake is one of FedEx’s two largest accounts in the Washington, D.C. area.”

With the Sterling location now in place, Georgetown Cupcake distributes their fresh concoctions throughout the country, making them available nationwide.

“We bake fresh on-site at our Sterling facility, and flash freeze the cupcakes so that they remain fresh during transit so they are perfect when they arrive. We also invested a lot of time creating the perfect packaging to ensure that our cupcakes arrive beautifully,” LaMontagne said. “Our shipping boxes are also pink with our signature swirls – so people receive a beautiful pink box of cupcakes on their doorstep.”

“For the past two years, we’ve shipped 10,000 cupcakes each year to our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. We plan to do it again next year,” Kallinis said. “We try to do all we can to support our troops. Within the U.S., we’ve literally shipped all over the country – even to the smallest, most remote towns.”

The sisters point out that the shipping side of the business has been booming since opening their location in Sterling with its 50 employees.

“Our shipping business has grown substantially over the past three years as people in the D.C. area want to share Georgetown Cupcake cupcakes with their friends and family outside of the area. Shipping cupcakes to friends and family in different states has become quite popular for birthdays, and holidays such as Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, or Christmas,” LaMontagne said. “We have a fun online ordering system where customers can choose their flavors and build their own custom cupcake assortments to ship, select their exact arrival date for their cupcakes to arrive, and even enter a gift note to accompany their shipment. It really makes a great gift and recipients get so excited when they see the Georgetown Cupcake pink box arrive on their doorstep – even though they are across the country.

“Since we started shipping our cupcakes, we have developed shipping drop-ship partnerships with Saks Fifth Avenue, Sur La Table, QVC and tlcstore.com so customers can order Georgetown Cupcake through these partners as well,” LaMontagne said.

Kallinis noted that Loudoun County has been successful from a business standpoint.

“Loudoun County was extremely easy to work with on all fronts of setting up our shipping bakery and things went very smoothly,” Kallinis said. “Loudoun County is extremely business-friendly and we love our location there. We really did not encounter any challenges or issues.”

The sisters have seen a great deal of media attention with the release of their book “The Cupcake Diaries: Recipes and Memories from the Sisters of Georgetown Cupcake” in 2011. They have appeared on the TLC series “DC Cupcakes,” and made several appearances on “The Today Show,” “The Rachel Ray Show” and “The Martha Stewart Show.” 

While the sisters are having a great deal of success shipping their cupcakes, they have also opened several new locations on the East Coast.

“We just opened a Georgetown Cupcake location in New York City at 111 Mercer Street and we are opening a new location in Boston at 83 Newbury Street in May,” LaMontagne said. “We are also filming new episodes of our television series “DC Cupcakes” on TLC. The next episode of “DC Cupcakes” airs May 11 at 10 p.m. on TLC.

“The episode, ‘Mommy’s Birthday Bash’, is a fun one-hour Mother’s Day-themed episode and a great deal of this episode was filmed at our Sterling shipping location,” she said.