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Elizabeth Nichols and Mary Catherine McClellan
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Sitting in her Brentwood office, Elizabeth Nichols pauses for a moment, sets aside her laptop, and pulls forward a large ivory letterpress box. It's lined in red linen, trimmed with a rich brown satin. Lifting the lid, she takes out a handful of heavy story cards, which tell the tale of a fledgling idea in graceful cursive. Before she had this office, back when she transported the box to meetings with potential investors, the presentation was simple. Straightforward. Elegant.
It still is.
Taigan, a carefully curated online marketplace of hand-selected items, builds a bridge between designers and small boutiques and the clientele they hope to reach. It culls not only from the Nashville area, but also from New Orleans, Miami, Ireland, New Zealand, Honolulu, North Carolina, Wisconsin, California, and numerous points in between.
Make no mistake: Taigan is not a flash sale site. It doesn't sell overstocked goods. What's posted is full price, and it's often hard to find anywhere else. Visitors can shop to their heart's content with no membership fee, but also have the option of joining Taigan Gold, which offers discounts to certain shops for $30 per year. Vendors share a percentage of sales with Taigan, and in turn, benefit from the site's ever-growing presence. It's already been featured by the likes of Town & Country, Vogue.com, and InStyle, and Nichols reports that editors from numerous publications are pulling new product from the site to present to their readers.
But before there was a websitewhen there was only an idea birthed by founders Mark McDonald and Mary Catherine McClellanNichols, McClellan, and those story cards traveled from shop to studio, cultivating interest. No surprise, really, that it worked: The passion, artistry, and sense of discovery at Taigan's core was a language everyone could easily understand.
'It's not about price point,” says Nichols, who brings an extensive entrepreneurial background in retail, property management, and real estate to her role as CEO. 'We look for things that are well made. We look for purveyors who are passionate about creating unique and special items, and who highly value and protect their brand, because Taigan's brand promise is to deliver a curated shopping experience. Each one can positively impact the other.”
Taigan's success appears to be in the amount of legwork that goes into choosing the vendors that will be presented in the first place. Peruse Taigan.com, and you'll find custom linens, jewelry, skincare, home décor, fashion, shoes and accessories, gourmet foods, and even handmade fly rods. As of March, 167 vendors were represented. But the focus remains on quality rather than quantity; about 4,000 vendors have so far requested a spot. A vetting team made up of Nichols, McClellan, and other 'trusted sources of different ages and aesthetic” considers the offerings. On the list: quality, packaging, customer service, integrity, appeal, success history, and that something special that the site's regular visitorscelebrities, politicians, and some of the 'most noted tastemakers across the world” among themhave come to expect. Inevitably, Nichols says, 'it is about style, good taste, and good quality; it is not about ‘expensive.'”
When the site launched in the fall of 2009, it was comprised solely of retailers. Today, however, 92 percent of the stores on Taigan are helmed by the people who actually create the products. Each shop is independently owned and operated, but recent technological additions have allowed customers to put items from numerous shops in one cart for checking out.
'In a world where brands and big companies sweep the landscape, it's nice to feel that by aggregating the smaller enterprises, we can help them have more power than they have on their own,” Nichols says.
Consider Fire Pit Art, based in Lebanon, Tenn. Artist Rick Wittrig creates custom steel bowls, pits, and sculpture, and though his family business already had a global footprint, he pursued Taigan as soon as he discovered it. It was the company's forward-thinking attitude that appealed to him, he saysin addition to the high standards of the others represented.
'One of the things they're doing really well is vetting the site,” Wittrig says. 'They could let their standards fall and include more vendors. But if that quality fell off, it would affect everybody else. It's not just about throwing everything out there and hoping something will stick.”
Not all vendors represented have other e-commerce outlets, Nichols says, and drawing them in was part of the original Taigan vision. The sitewhich takes its name from a rare canine that tenaciously hunts with sight, speed, and all of its sensesis aimed at expanding the reach of all involved.
Lynn Osgood, vice president of Therapy Systems, parent company of home décor and gift shop Absolution, says a couple from Cincinnati recently dropped by the physical store after purchasing candles through Taigan. 'When they were in town for the weekend, they sought out the store,” she says. 'They wanted to see what else we had. They're definitely great clients, and they bought some different things. It's really a great way for us and others to get our name out there with like-minded people.”
See a sampling of the Tennessee products you'll find on Taigan in the May issue of Nashville Lifestyles magazine!
'I've grown up here, so I've always known that Nashville is a great place to live, a great place to raise a family, and a great place to find great restaurants,” says Samantha Richter, vice president of Corzine & Co. and owner of Richter Gallery, each represented on Taigan. 'But shopping is the last frontier. It's still about getting people used to the idea of finding things here. With Corzine's, we've been a destination for decades. But it's so funny when people come in and say, ‘Oh, I didn't know you sold Hermes china here. I thought I could only get that in New York.' Nashville is finally catching on and catching up, and it's all for the greater good. It's wonderful when people realize that the amazing things you can find in other places are also right here in your backyard.”
Nichols, herself an avid online shopper and frequent traveler, says while in other cities, it's not just the quality of the Nashville-area shops represented that can raise an eyebrow; it's also the level of the locally based technology involved. Taigan continues to evolve its technology with proprietary code. Nichols terms the approach 'three-pronged,” including: maintenance and constant monitoring of upgrades; refinement to ensure tools such as the recommendation engine, internal messaging, and Google data feed are working at top capacity; and business growth, including rewarded social sharing, the development of a bridal and gift registry, and increasing the relevancy of the site to each and every visitor.
'I love the fact that we have a strong and very small workforceall women, by the waythat is sitting here in Middle Tennessee, putting forth a really cool e-commerce business for the world to see,” Nichols says.
Mackenzie Colt, owner of Colts Chocolates, is happy for the same. Her road to Taigan included a bit of a twist: When she emailed the team about being involved, she requested an address for sending sampleswith no idea that she was 'right down the street.”
'It blew my mind that Taigan was local,” she says. 'The site is so beautiful, I honestly had no idea this was happening in Nashville.”
Colt feels 'a real thrill and appreciation” about being involved, but also the close proximity: 'I feel like I could just show up on their doorstep and talk,” she says. 'We all want the same thing. We want to build our businesses, keep our customers happy, and work together at doing that. It's a good relationship, and they're very accessible.”
Meanwhile, back in her office, Nichols is speaking of Taigan's included shops as both CEO and customer. She talks excitedly about the ever-evolving catalog of offering, including area purveyors such as Woo Skincare & Cosmetics, Turkish-T, Haven, Lizzy Couture, and Peter Nappi.
That last one on the listmaker of handcrafted Italian leather boots, bags, and other itemshas seen more than customer growth through the relationship with Taigan. The way that the offerings have been embraced by Taigan's mostly female customers has led the company to expand its women's line.
'The folks at Taigan, from top to bottom, everyone you work with, are so passionate about believing in you,” says Dana Nappi, whose husband Phillip pursued a lifelong dream in creating the line, discovering along the way that the grandfather he had never known was a boot maker, as well. 'Every time you pick up the phone, you can feel them smiling, and you can hear them telling you how wonderful you are. They really do everything they can to promote your passion.”
By Fiona Soltes