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Little Fish Inks Deal with Nationwide Distribution Company

Little Fish Studios, the local inspirational greeting card company owned and operated by Mary Ann Rinkleff, recently partnered with Collage Greetings, an innovative greeting card distributor dedicated to helping small greeting card and gift manufacturers.

Collage Greetings, located in Bend, Ore., represents 14 small manufacturers, offering artists like Rinkleff the support they need to focus on the creative side of the business. Under the agreement with Collage, Rinkleff will control the creative and product development side of the business, while the distributor will handle nationwide sales and marketing, order fulfillment and distribution, and customer service.

Rinkleff founded Little Fish Studios in 2002 and started selling to wholesale customers outside Door County in 2004. Prior to signing with Collage, she was serving roughly 600 wholesale customers nationwide and was managing more than 60 independent sales reps. Rinkleff traveled frequently to wholesale trade shows and exhibited every year at the National Stationery Show in New York. She signed her first distribution deal in 2006 with Jannex Enterprises, the distributor that since then has handled her sales and fulfillment in Canada.

“As Little Fish has grown, it has become more difficult for me to manage every aspect of the business,” Rinkleff said. “The new partnership with Collage will allow me to spend more time focusing on my art and, I hope, to explore potential new additions to the Little Fish product line. It also gives me a better balance between my work life and my personal life.”

Rinkleff’s longtime Door County retailers – including Door County Nature Works in Egg Harbor, Ecology Sports in Sister Bay and The Clearing bookstore in Ellison Bay – will continue to carry a wide selection of Little Fish greeting cards. The line has a loyal following among Door County residents, who enjoy the combination of meditative nature photography and inspirational quotations and who also like the fact that it’s a local product.

The complete line of Little Fish greeting cards, notecards, boxed notes and holiday cards also is available at The Rustic Fish Gallery, the shop Rinkleff owns with her husband, Erik. His hand-carved, collectible wood carvings and a selection of pieces from other artists round out the selection at Rustic Fish, which is located at The Shops of Green Gables, on Highway 42 one mile north of downtown Ephraim.