We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Taylor Pierce a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Taylor thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you recount a story of an unexpected problem you’ve faced along the way?
Having owned this business for less than a year, I am constantly learning new things. When I first started this business I thought I would have more of an “in-person” presence participating in markets and pop-ups compared to an “on-line” presence, but come to find out I was wrong. In the beginning I heavily relied on markets and pop-ups to gain exposure, but after posting and gaining popularity on TikTok and Instagram, I realized that my products (specifically the car chimes) were in high demand all over the world. Immediately, I got to work gathering supplies, making car chimes, setting up my website, and advertising on my numerous social media platforms through videos and pictures. I announced to my audience that the first launch of car chimes would be on February 14th, 2025 at 4pm EST. I chose this day and marketed it in a way to encourage the girls to treat themselves to something special on Valentine’s Day. My marketing tactic definitely worked. I launched about 10 car chimes and they were sold out within 5 minutes. The instant flood of orders and numerous Instagram messages already demanding a restock was very overwhelming. About two hours later once everything had settled down, I was going through my orders and revenue. I realized that I made way more money than I should have with such a small launch. My stomach dropped. I started to panic because I was confident that I triple checked everything leading up to the launch; product prices, inventory, quantities, etc. With further research, I realized that one car chime had somehow been set to have an “unlimited quantity.” This means that that particular car chime had been oversold 25 times. This was a huge mistake on my part. I emailed all 25 people and explained what had happened. No words can describe how bad I felt, even though everyone was very understanding considering it was my first launch ever. I issued refunds to everyone and decided to do a special limited launch just for them. They were very happy with this decision. For the next 3 weeks I worked as hard and as fast as I could. I was out on the sandbar in the brisk Winter months collecting shells and dedicating all my time to the limited launch. I knew I had to make this right. March 5th, 2025 was limited launch day. I emailed all 25 people that morning with a password to log onto my site. This would prevent any other traffic or shoppers on my site. Hours before the site went live, I checked over everything what felt like a hundred times. I could not afford another mistake like the one before. Thankfully the limited launch went as smooth as possible. I had very happy customers who were able to get a car chime without the pressure of hundreds of other people on the site. From that very first launch, I now do things very differently on launch days. I learned that I need to give myself more time and take things slowly to avoid any mistakes. Now, I usually upload all my products and set my quantities at least a day in advance. This gives me time to go back in and double check that my listings are correct way before the actual launch.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Hello! My name is Taylor Pierce. I am the owner and founder of Wrightshell. I grew up in Cary, NC but would frequently visit Wrightsville Beach, NC whether it be for a weekend or simply a day trip. If you know me, you know that I’ve always considered myself a beach girl. Collecting shells, laying out, and playing mermaids has always been my forte. I always told myself that I would live in a beach town one day. Flash forward to 2022, I’m moving to Wilmington, NC to attend my senior year at The University of North Carolina at Wilmington. I graduated in May of 2023 with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration degree with a concentration in entrepreneurship. I always knew I wanted to work for myself one day, I just didn’t know how or doing what. This took some time to figure out. After graduating, I started my own interior decorating business and then worked with a designer here in Wilmington, NC. I learned a lot, but unfortunately was not as fulfilled as I hoped I would be. A few months later I decided to take a walk around Wrightsville Beach. There was one beach house in particular that stuck with me. It had wind chimes hanging all around the porch, but if you looked closely the chimes were made out of seashells hanging from driftwood. I thought to myself “I could totally make those!” Next thing you know I’m coming up with a business name. I settled on Wrightshell as it’s a homage to Wrightsville Beach, which is where I find all the shells that I create with. Luckily, living near the beach has its perks when your small business relies on seashells and driftwood. I spent months gathering supplies, bleaching driftwood, and cleaning and drilling seashells until I had a final product. I launched the wind chimes on my Instagram, but didn’t have any interested buyers. I even brought them with me to markets and pop-ups and they never seemed to sell consistently. Most of the feedback that I received was related to the price or the size of the wind chimes. Some people loved them, but just didn’t know where to put them. I was at a loss. Months later, I started thinking about ways to stay true to my wind chimes but scale them down a bit. That’s when I came up with the idea to create car chimes. My car chimes look, hang, and sound just like wind chimes, but are much smaller. They are meant to go around your rearview mirror. My followers absolutely loved this concept. I’m very specific in the shells I use to make my car chimes. I tend to only use calico scallops as they have an amazing shape and come in the most stunning and unique colors. No one shell is the same, meaning no one car chime is the same. My car chimes and the love they receive is so special to me. It means the world knowing that so many people love what I create. Although the car chimes are the most sought after, I’ve also come out with keychains and bag charms made out of calico scallops as well. Launching new products is always a risk, but I’ve been rewarded every time. Each launch has sold out within 5 minutes or less and I couldn’t be more thankful.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
When I first started Wrightshell, I knew I wanted to use Instagram to market myself. I was posting consistently, providing sneak peeks of products, engaging with followers, etc., but the growth was so slow. This was when I turned to TikTok. I created an account and uploaded my first video. I used a trending audio and brought my followers along with me to collect shells. So many people loved this type of content. I think they were fascinated by the fact that I could get in my car, be at the beach within 10 minutes, and collect natural resources for my small business. This video gained 11K views, hundreds of likes, multiple comments, and brought in an abundance of followers. Although this was a big deal, it was really my car chime video that made my small business go viral. This was the third video I had ever posted and it currently has almost half a million views. Again, I used a trending audio. This video was of my first batch of car chimes ever made. I hung each car chime from my rearview mirror and got a second long video clip of each one hanging. After posting, I put my phone down and went to bed. The next morning I woke up to hundreds of thousands of views. So many people were commenting asking where they could buy one or if I’d be making more. By this point I had gained a few thousand followers. I was speechless. I had multiple influencers commenting and liking as well. I knew I needed to keep the ball rolling so I kept posting. I put my Instagram in my TikTok bio so that brought some followers and viewers to Instagram, but TikTok is still my most followed and viewed platform. I think it’s very important to take advantage of all social media these days. You never know what or where something can go viral. My advice would be to post any and everything! Even if you think people won’t care, I promise there are people that will. Those people will take your business very far.
How’d you think through whether to sell directly on your own site or through a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc.
I sell all my products on my own personal website that I made using Squarespace. In the beginning, I was between using Etsy or creating a website of my own. I talked through the pros and cons with another small business owner. She made a really good point in saying that people tend to use Etsy if they need exposure. Luckily, through TikTok, I already had exposure but I needed somewhere to direct all the exposure. I decided to make my own website. I bought my domain through Square and was really impressed with all the customization features. I wanted my website to feel and look like me. I consider it very user-friendly as well which is very important! The only thing I’m not very fond of is the fees, but you’re going to get those no matter what platform you use (if it’s good).
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.wrightshell.com/
- Instagram: wrightshellnc
- Other: TikTok: wrightshell
