As more and more people turn to online stores for their purchases, sales of products that were once considered difficult to sell online are increasingly becoming easier.
Jewelry, especially fine jewelry is one category that has always had buyers remain cautious when purchasing from online stores. However, with so many safety nets available for buyers to get replacements and refunds, buying jewelry online is becoming no different from buying jewelry at retail stores.
Good product photography, detailed descriptions, replacement/refund options, convenient shipping, and various payment options have added to the lure of making jewelry purchases online.
If you’re someone with a good eye for jewelry designs interested in getting into the bling business or someone who already has a jewelry boutique and looking to expand, it is high time that you start looking at selling jewelry online.
There is a lot of potential in setting up your own store online or selling jewelry through marketplaces to grow your business.
If you’re new to selling jewelry online, we have created a handy manual for you to follow to get started on the journey.
How to Sell Wholesale Jewelry Online?
There are a few things that you have to follow to sell jewelry online. While having an established brand name and reputation helps, there are still a lot of things you have to work on when you are selling jewelry online.
Here are 8 steps to follow to sell jewelry online.
- Decide Your Niche
While being diverse is good, having a niche is better. In fact, you can target your customers better, have focused groups visit your store, and have better conversions.
There are three niches you can tap into with jewelry — fine jewelry, fashion/costume jewelry, and semi-fine jewelry.
By asserting your dominance in any one of these three niches, you can break through and gain an audience for your jewelry. When you’ve positioned yourself strongly in one niche, you will have the option to expand into other niches.
- Decide Where to Sell Your Jewelry
You have two options when it comes to selling your jewelry online. You can either create your own online store and/or sell through marketplaces.
We recommend you do both.
The advantage of having an online store is that there are no commissions and fees that you have to pay for selling your jewelry. However, it is difficult to rank your store and you will have to spend a lot of money on advertising during the initial days.
The advantage of selling through marketplaces is that there are a lot of buyers readily available for your jewelry and you don’t have to do the heavy lifting of advertising and marketing your products. Also, you don’t have to worry about packaging and shipping, if you trust the marketplace to do it for you. However, you will have to take a cut in your profit margin due to the commissions and fees of these marketplaces.
The ideal strategy when you’re starting to sell jewelry online is to build your online store simultaneously as you begin selling on marketplaces. Initially, you will have more orders on the marketplaces. However, when you earn a reputation and gain a following, you will see your own website start to perform better than marketplaces.
- Setup Your Online Store
Think of your online store as a retail store. You will have a lot of customization options available to make your online store stand out. The domain name, brand name, design and layout of the website, selection of colors, and content on the website all add a unique flavor to it.
By setting up your online store and customizing it, you will position yourself as a unique player in the space.
Domain Name — Your domain name is how your customers will find you. Try to get the same name as your brand name for your domain name. Consistency is important. Also, a shorter domain name is easier to remember for customers.
Retail Platform — There are many e-commerce builders available to set up your jewelry store. Each comes with handy tools to better design and organize your website. Choose from Shopify, BigCommerce, Squarespace, and WooCommerce your preferred platform. When deciding the platform, take into consideration the features offered, templates available, customer support, and your budget.
Categories — Categorize your products into rings, bracelets, necklaces, earrings, anklets, watches, and more. You can further classify your products by the type of metal — gold, silver, diamond, platinum, etc. Also, furthermore, classifications based on occasions like birthday, wedding, anniversary, etc., will make it easy for customers to shop from your online store.
Product Photography — When it comes to selling jewelry online, nothing beats beautiful photography. You need to add lots of photos of your jewelry with a neutral background to bring its beauty to life. Check out Pandora to get an idea of how good photography can be highly effective in jewelry sales online.
Product Descriptions — Buyers look for detailed descriptions. Especially when they are buying things that they’re planning to own for a long time. If you have insufficient descriptions, your buyers will not get in touch with you to get more information. A lot of buyers will leave your store and you can potentially lose prospective customers. Take the time to create unique and detailed descriptions for your products. The more engaging they are, the better it is.
Social Media — Initially, you have to use social media effectively for marketing and reaching a wider audience. Set up a Facebook page shop to display and sell your products on both Facebook and Instagram. You may also want to set up a Pinterest account to engage with jewelry lovers. A lot of Pinterest users enjoy unique jewelry.
- Setup Store on Retail and Wholesale Marketplaces
You need to set up stores on marketplaces with the same high-quality photos and detailed product descriptions.
Some of the best marketplaces to set up a store include Strade, Etsy, eBay, Amazon Homemade, and Bonanza.
Remember, there will be commissions and fees for every sale you make through marketplaces. Make sure you know the fees you will be paying.
If you’re planning on selling wholesale, Strade provides you the best platform to reach buyers from around the world if you want to sell wholesale. When you register to sell on Strade, you get access to the best buyers from 100+ countries, integrated shipping, safe online payments, payments in your currency, and more.
- Price Your Products
It is important to get your pricing right when selling jewelry online. We suggest you price your products at least four times the material and packaging cost added together.
This way, even if up to 50 percent is taken up in listing your products, commissions, and fees, you stand to profit from selling online and not having to deal with the anxiety of breaking even or even losing money.
You will also have to think about returns and refunds. By having backup plans in place for things that can go wrong, you will minimize the damage and stand to be profitable in your business.
- Setup Payments and Shipping Options
When you’re operating your own online store, it is important to give customers a wide range of payment options. This can include PayPal, Venmo, Alipay, and more. When there are a lot of convenient options for customers to pay, they will be pleased to shop at your store.
On your online store, show your customers the estimated amount of time it would take for products to reach them. You can give them expedited shipping options to get their jewelry delivered faster for an extra shipping fee. There are various couriers to choose from including USPS, DHL, FedEx, and Aramex.
- Market Your Products
When you’re starting out, you will have to rely more on advertising on Google and social media sites like Facebook and Instagram to gain customers. Use the Facebook page shop to show your offerings to the world. Target your audience based on their location, interest, age, etc., to sell more jewelry. You have to get a lot of positive reviews to establish yourself.
Use social media to regularly post content and engage with your audience. Use a tool like Hootsuite or Buffer to schedule posts in bulk to have constant new content for your followers. Remember to take time out to reply back to comments and DMs on social media.
SEO is a long-term strategy for your online store. You have to consistently create new content and provide value to your customers. Be it through engaging product descriptions or new blogs, your content and engagement will boost your SEO metrics, making it possible for your website to appear higher on Google search results for highly competitive search terms.
Use e-mail marketing to sell more to existing customers and converting new customers. Your customers trust you with their email addresses. Be sure to provide them value with useful content shared via email. You can also market your products to your customers through email. If done right, e-mail marketing can be a huge push for your products and elevate your online store with more sales.
- Manage Your Inventory
Managing your stock is essential when running an online store. You can use the inventory tracking that comes with your e-commerce website builder to set up inventory tracking for your online store. This way, you can let your customers know when products are in stock, low in stock, and out of stock.
When you track your inventory, you do not have to worry about having to be constantly in front of your computer to update product availability details. Save yourself a lot of time and let an inventory tracking solution smoothen the process and free your time.
We have ensured that you have every piece of information you need to start selling jewelry online. By following these steps, you can be ready to sell jewelry online and get access to buyers from around the world.
If you plan on selling wholesale, register to set up your store on Strade to sell to buyers globally. We have simplified the process of setting up an online store and have all the features you need to start selling jewelry online today!
