You have a talent for making beautiful jewelry. You are able to turn seemingly random gemstones and beading into beautiful pieces of art. Your friends and family can’t wait to get their hands on your next design. They all insist that you should start your own online jewelry business, positive that you would be successful in selling your handmade jewelry. After taking some time to think about it, you make the decision to go ahead with the idea of starting an e-commerce store to sell your handmade designs.
Setting up an online jewelry business is no easy task. You have to have a lot of determination to succeed, some time to dedicate to building your e-commerce site, and the understanding that it will take a lot of work to get it started and to keep the site up and your customers happy. With more than 2 million people online every day, shopping for jewelry, it can be a very lucrative business.
Running your own online jewelry business takes a lot of effort, but with some careful planning, you can start a good online jewelry business with a little bit of thought.
Figure Out Your Short Term Goals
When you are figuring out how to start a jewellery business, the first thing that you need to do is to look at your short-term goals. Take the time to sit down and make a list of what kind of jewelry you want to sell as well as how soon you want to get your e-commerce site up and running. By thinking about these short term goals you’ll be able to get a clearer picture of how much jewelry you will need to make and which kinds of pieces you will need to design. Make a list and put together a timetable of when you need to have the beginning inventory completed so you can keep yourself on track as you move toward getting your jewelry business online.
Take Great Photos
When it comes to selling your jewelry online, one of the most important things that you can do is supply your customers with beautiful, high-quality images of your products. If you include photos that are fuzzy or under lit, or if it doesn’t show enough details, you won’t be staying in business for very long. Including poor photographs simply tell your customers that you aren’t serious about your work explains Jennifer VanBenschoten, a Beading Daily contributor. If you are serious about selling your jewelry online, you need to learn how to take amazing photos of your work.
Item Descriptions
The descriptions that you include on each of your items are almost as important as the photographs that you take. You want to make sure that you are as detailed as possible when you describe each piece of jewelry, because customers may be doing some comparison-shopping. Giving as much detail as possible will not only help a potential buyer make a decision, but it will give them less reason to return an item, explains Randi Molofsky, contributing editor at JCK Magazine online. Make each description unique and make the customer visual themselves wearing the item.
Be Clear About Restrictions
Selling jewelry online is one of the harder e-Commerce industries that you can get into. Many times, customers are looking at jewelry sites for last minute gifts and need to have them shipped out immediately, or they may purchase an item only to be unhappy with their selection once the item arrives. If there are certain restrictions to the sale of your pieces like, final sale or not available immediately, make sure that any restriction has a prominent place in the listing. A great place to put this type of information is as close to the add to cart button as possible for a visual reminder.
Extra Site Features
When customers are shopping online for jewelry, site should be creative and they like to be able to compare multiple pieces that they like in order to make an informed decision. Including a compare function on your site will allow customers to compare different pieces like they would if they were shopping in-store. Another feature that you may want to consider is adding a virtual Wish List to your site. This allows customers to place items to the side that they might like to have, that their friends and family can see for gift ideas. It also can work as a reminder for customers that may not have been able to purchase an item they loved previously.
The U.S. retail jewelry sales are expected to exceed $70 billion this year according to the site Practical Ecommerce. Now is a great time for you to take your handmade, one-of-a-kind jewelry and start an e-Commerce business. Do your research and take the time to make your online store look great, and you’ll be able to find success selling your unique pieces on the Internet.
