Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jessie Taylor. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Jessie, appreciate you joining us today. Day to day the world can seem like a tough place, but there’s also so much kindness in the world and we think talking about that kindness helps spread it and make the world a nicer, kinder place. Can you share a story of a time when someone did something really kind for you?

Reshelled was doing well growing organically—the jewelry was in a store on 30A in Florida (where I grew up), and I was getting consistent orders. One day, I got a text with a screenshot of an Instagram story asking if the jewelry in the photo was mine.

Of course, the first thing I spotted was the blue checkmark by Landyn Hutchinson’s Instagram handle, @livingwithlandyn. My first thought was that someone was making similar jewelry to mine. After realizing that she was visiting 30A, I got super excited and sent her a DM.

At the time, I didn’t know who Landyn was—clearly I was living under a rock because, at 316K followers, she’s hard to miss.

Somehow Landyn saw my message in her flooded inbox. She responded with the nicest message about how excited she was that we were able to connect as her inbox was full of messages from her community asking about her shell necklace.

Landyn had purchased the necklace at Ophelia Swimwear, a boutique swimwear store along 30A—because of this, she couldn’t find the brand of the necklace.

At this point, she had been scouring the internet with no luck, then saw my message. We chatted back and forth for a while and decided that she would share the link to my website the following day with a discount code.

She asked if I was ready for her to share the link which I thought was kind of odd. What I didn’t know at the time is that Landyn’s followers are known to sell out products in minutes.

The next morning, I quickly named the necklace after Landyn on my site and sentparent her the discount code. I thought that I would get maybe 20 orders from Landyn (which I was still very excited about).

Within 30 minutes I had 50 orders. Two hours later I was up to nearly 200. The numbers kept growing from there—by the end of the week, I had 500+ orders.

Plot twist, I was going out of the country for my full-time job for 3 weeks the day after the orders came in. Thankfully, most of Landyn’s followers are as nice and understanding as she is.

When I got back on November 11th, I had 650+ orders to fulfill before Christmas. Keep in mind that a lot of orders were more than just the one necklace, so it was more like 1,000 pieces of jewelry. At this point, I was working completely alone in my second bedroom.

For the next month, I worked early mornings and nights around my full-time job. The fulfillment process required ordering suppli

es, managing the site, customer service, drilling shells, making the jewelry, packaging, and mailing orders. Luckily, I have helpful friends and an understanding boyfriend (our condo looked like the seafloor).

Spoiler: All of the orders made it out in time for Christmas and I’ve been getting consistent orders ever since thanks to the influx of 3K+ followers from Landyn that still follow Reshelled.

Landyn didn’t just share Reshelled once, she went on to tell the story of how we connected and even posted from Cabo and other trips months later.

I cannot begin to say enough good things about Landyn Hutchinson, she truly changed my life out of the goodness of her heart.

Jessie, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Jessie Taylor. Originally from Santa Rosa Beach, Florida, I love everything about the beach. Currently, I live in Nashville but find myself at my parents house in Grayton Beach, FL almost monthly—I can’t stay away from the water for too long.

When I think back to how I got into jewelry, my mom’s side of the family comes to mind. My aunt has a business, Drift With Anne, making home decor from driftwood and shells. Additionally, several of my cousins have their own small creative businesses.

Growing up, we spent two weeks every summer visiting the Johnston side of the family at Fripp Island, SC. “Shelling” was one of our favorite activities—so, when I started a shell jewelry line, no one was surprised.

I launched Reshelled during the pandemic after a trip to Saint Barth’s. To thank our host, I made a pair of earrings out of shells that I found during the trip.

After posting the earrings to my Instagram story and getting several messages from friends wanting to buy a pair, I eventually started a separate Instagram for Reshelled, then a website in January of 2021.

I now have a full jewelry line including earrings, necklaces, body chains, and anklets—everything is made using stainless steel, gold plated hardware so that you can swim in Reshelled without the risk of the jewelry turning.

In terms of the brand, my marketing strategy is what I think sets the brand apart. I’ve been able to take Reshelled from an account that only my mom followed (thanks, mom), to a place where people can shop, see behind the scenes, follow along on beach trips, and see how I style Reshelled.

I often record Instagram stories collecting shells on beach trips—this is special because customers can see me find the shells, make them into jewelry, and then buy that piece on my website.

Luckily, I studied marketing in school and have specifically worked in content marketing for over six years, so I know my way around social media.

I’m extremely proud of my work ethic, thanks mom and dad. I work a full-time job and run Reshelled on the side. One time, I managed to get 1,000+ pieces of jewelry made and shipped out in one month, essentially by myself.

I want people to know how much their support means to me—whether it’s a follow on Instagram or repeat orders, I honestly get excited about every notification. Lastly, I wouldn’t be where I am now without the support of other women; it’s so important to support one another.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Obviously, the organic interaction with Landyn (@livingwithlandyn) helped to grow the Reshelled audience significantly, so that was huge. In addition to Landyn, I did a lot of small things to build up the Reshelled audience on social, resulting in more customers.

The first thing I did was stay super local. My first three photoshoots were on 30A (where I’m from), with a local photographer, and all local models. I asked all of my friends to be in the photoshoots—they’re all beautiful so that was easy. The other nice part is that we live in a small-ish town.

When I got the photos back, I sent them to all of the girls and gave them a list of the people they needed to tag in the photos if they were to post. The tags included the brands of swimwear, etc. from the partnerships and other clothing that the models brought to increase the exposure of each post. Every time I posted from Reshelled, I followed the same guidelines and got reposted from all of the models. Eventually, people on 30A saw Reshelled over and over again.

The second thing I did was collaborate with other local 30A businesses. For example. I outfitted the models in all Ophelia Swimwear, a local boutique with a solid Instagram following of locals and tourists who consistently visit the area. Ophelia used the photos on their own social media, tagging Reshelled. The models also tagged Ophelia who re-posted their posts—you get the idea.

For photoshoots, I’ve collaborated with Ophelia Swimwear, The 30A Company, Shade Hat Co, Tribe Kelley, Esther Rel, Graze 30A, Shop Willodeen, Mary Ellen Dimauro, Becasa, Distillery 98, Campesino Rum, Citizen, Florida Squeezed, and the Sea Monkey House in Costa Rica.

Most recently, I went to Santa Teresa, Costa Rica with two other girls and the Reshelled photographer, Savannah Young (Savvibelle Photography) for a 5-day photoshoot. It was amazing, and I, of course, documented everything on social. The photos from that should sustain my social accounts for the next ~5 months.

Pop-ups are also a great way to build your social media audience—I’ve done around 10 pop-ups now with lots of other businesses. Every time you participate in an event, each business promotes the event, therefore promoting you. The traffic at the events is great and I usually end up with at least 20 new followers depending on the size of the event.

Another obvious strategy is doing giveaways. They’re a bit annoying and overdone but they still work (for now at least). Depending on the giveaway, there’s a lot of strategy in the decision of what to giveaway, when to do the giveaway, collaborating with another business so the giveaway is bigger (and you get exposure to their following), and the requirements of the giveaway. It’s not as simple as it seems but usually my following jumps a bit.

The last vertical is influencer marketing. The buying power that comes with an influencer who fits your brand is wild. I do a lot of outreach to influencers trying to gift jewelry in hopes that they post wearing Reshelled. There’s a ton of strategy in picking influencers—I’ve had some that I thought were a perfect fit post about Reshelled and get zero followers. Then there’s the situation with Landyn where I gained 3K followers because she took the time to tell her followers a story about Reshelled and the organic way that we connected. When it works with one influencer, it’s worth the hours of outreach I’ve put in.

Lastly, post consistently—this one is a non-negotiable. I currently use the posting platform, Later, to schedule my Instagram content because you can see a preview of your feed.

We’d love to hear your thoughts about selling platforms like Amazon/Etsy vs selling on your own site.

I sell on my website, www.reshelledjewelry.com. I made my website on Shopify which I find pretty user-friendly—they also have amazing customer service which I use all the time to answer questions, etc.

Admittedly I don’t know much about Etsy. I do my fair share of ordering on the platform but never looked into how it works from the seller’s side. People do really well on Etsy, and I’m sure Reshelled would sell, but I’m not currently planning to join the platform.

As I mentioned before, marketing is one of the things that I enjoy most about Reshelled. Because of that, I solely focus on building my brand on Instagram and selling through my website instead of listing products on a 3rd party site.

However, depending on your business, Etsy could absolutely be the move for you—it depends on your strengths and goals. If you’re all about the craft and don’t like the marketing side, a 3rd party like Etsy could be perfect.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.reshelledjewelry.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reshelledjewelry/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ReshelledJewelry
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessie-j-taylor/
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@reshelledjewelry

Image Credits
Savannah Young of Savvibelle Photography, @savvibellephotography, www.savvibellephotography.com