Selling handmade jewelry

If I were you I would focus on Etsy, and building a very elaborate Magento eCommerce website. If you are going to try to sell on eBay, maybe try to do it in bulk for a low profit margin simply because there aren't that many listings for the term "Bulk Wholesale jewelry handmade"

You can try to attend some tradeshows and maybe she will get some large orders, but in all honesty - these people usually sit alone at their booths looking like someone just told them that they just ran over their dog.

Jewelry is at the core of items built completely on perceived value. If you can't make her items look valuable, they won' be.

Etsy and Pinterest. I used to sell on Etsy
....the key is to create a blog that allows customers an inside look into the "artist". Its not all about the jewelry. You become engaged with your fans and they come back and buy. At least that's a start....i sold on there about 5 years ago. I think jewelry is one of the main items listed so you need to stand out.

1. in-house eCommerce website setup? (Magento, OpenCart, ZenCart,...) YES - I prefer Zencart
2. Hosted eCommerce Solutions (Shoppify, Volusion, BigCommerce,...) - HELL NO unless you want ease of use.
3. Amazon Store - GREAT to link to your site
4. eBay Store - Get in on the biggest marketplace but remember to include a leaflet or discount voucher for your own site inside the parcel

Between in house, or hosted ecomm solutions, it's always important to think about
being held hostage to the whims or failures of the hosted ecomm sites.

And, if your friend wants her site to "do this", or "look like this" (which she will because she's an artist), it may be difficult, or not doable, not economically feasible, or very expensive with a hosted ecomm solution.

It's been awhile, but last time I dealt with customization issues on somebody else's platform, we would have to pay their people their rate (no code access), or we would sometimes get "We have not had a lot of requests for that feature, so no we can't do that until we get more requests."

Besides, it should not be that complicated of a site if she' a solo artist/entrepreneur.

Dan

She'll sell a ton of jewelry having people hosting home jewelry parties. Give the host a discount/free stuff for getting 5-10 friends together. They have wine/snacks and buy buy buy.

Have your friend contact me, I buy tons of bulk jewelry at competitive prices. SEE SIG!

Hey,

I agree with everyone else. I would try etsy but also I would contact people on ebay that are already in that niche and offer them wholesale prices. I currently have a store on ebay and I would be interested in buying some bulk depending on what they are.

I spend 40% of my time looking for new products to sell and finding suppliers, so if someone messaged me on ebay explaining what they were selling and what it was and it had something to do with my niche, I would welcome it with open arms and not see it as a spam message.

Private message me if you want... I'd like to see some pictures/prices


- Travis

We sell handmade cosmetics that we produce (my wife does all hand making, I do computer work). We use opencart. For online selling: Etsy, Ebay, Your ecommerce site) and you will need to do good bit of offline selling such as: house party, famers market, thrifts). Facebook ads work well but done in correct way such as using attractive person with product in picture ad instead of just your product in ad. Here is our site if you want to take look: Natural moisturizer | Beauty cream | Lip Balm | Lip Stick | Perfume | Paraben-Free Products | Guuky

Great advice here. I would add that - before you commit yourself to any serious setup expense - you should test a few products on Ebay and similar sites, in order to assess interest.

I think the best place for selling is ListingDock.
There is a special section for this purpose.
Your can check it here: Jewelry Section

Etsy is a good choice. Also, try Pinterest - you can drive a massive traffic from this SM (mostly woman, buyers!)

Hi..I'm interested to sell the hand-made jewelry off-line... pls PM me.. tks.

Listingdock as others has mentioned is actually owned by ionicware, which is the owners of SEOClerks. It's a newly launched marketplace but the features are great just like they are on SEOClerks.

I haven't bought anything from Listingdock myself yet, but I'd recommend it because I'm a huge fan of ionicware.

Cheers,
inyourway

Facebook Ads
Solo Ads
Buysell Ads
is the best for best Traffic

If you look at some of the popular jewelry e-commerce sites, like Stella&Dot or Zales, you can see on the homepage that there is a contact box for people to enter their email address to subscribe to their mailing lists to receive special offers, latest products, company updates, etc.

This method is called email marketing, and it is one of the most successful internet marketing sites there is. Once people are interested enough in your site to subscribe to your mailing lists, you now have a chance to create a personal relationship with your email campaigns. Maybe a fun contest to giveaway a free piece of jewelry. Or offer a discount to the next 10 lucky subscribers, etc. The possibilities are endless.

These special deals are what will motivate people to sign up, receive more special values, and thus increase sales and traffic for you. All other methods will be successful but not so much as sustainable. Where e-commerce or regular commerce store, its the consumer's favor towards your company that will bring it success.

If you have any questions, please feel free to message me for more details. Good luck!

If i were you i'd start with the following:

1. Etsy
2. Luulla
3. Artfire
4. Bonanza
5. Your own ecommerce site - Storenvy/shopify

and then branch out to ebay and amazon.

Facebook is the best and low cost method to get target visitors now a days. Just go for it and spend more time on Facebook for getting buyers.

I would try social media like FB and/or etsy or pinterest.
Great info and recommendations!

Good advice here, but no one has mentioned Prestashop. It's an excellent if lesser used platform.. Also, as a note, just about any of the scripts for the mentioned platforms can be loaded one click from many of the basic hosting services out there. I use iPage and BlueHost, and am happy with both.

Hey,

As a newbie in e-commerce and if you have a smaller budget, i suggest that you use a hosted shopping cart solution. In which you can scale bigger once you grow. It will save you the trouble and the headache of developing it yourself which if you try magento you'll need to spend quite a bit maintaining the site.

You need to use most of these channels. However, do remember, the key is to use these channels to build your brand. If you're thinking of direct sales, it will be disappointing to get those ads in

My suggestion, build a community, get some interaction and your store will gain traction in no time.

Abel

Hi,

I suggest your friend starts with easy to use hosted solution...

Adding to it, a wordpress site can be used to promote the store...

Initially, do not use paid search. Add products, show it to friends, work on FB pages, google plus pages and after a month start working on marketing spending money.

I would say start with a hosted site to test the market. Once you have some experience there, build up your own platform based on Magento.
For traffic paid options like PPC advertising etc can be too expensive but useful if done right. But do consider content marketing and white hat SEO as well.

Here are my suggestions if you're just starting out and don't want to spend a lot of money, but more importantly, you need to test the products and see if they'll sell (I used to sell handmade jewelry myself):

(1) Set up a shop on etsy. You do not need to set up your own website, not until you start selling tons of jewelry and you have the money to invest in paying for your own website.

(2) Set up social media accounts with pinterest and facebook. Pin photos of all of your friend's jewelry. On your facebook fan page, talk about upcoming shows, new product announcements, show pictures of the jewelry being made, etc.

(3) Set up a free blog (such as blogger.com). This is optional. I didn't have a blog. I felt that it would have been redundant as I would have included the same information from my fb fan page. But the more traffic that you have out there leading to your etsy storefront, the better.

(4) Invest in business cards and postcards to include in etsy shipments as well as any other sales and business transactions.

(5) Promote your products locally. This is really important. Visit local boutiques, clothing stores, jewelry stores, local artisan stores. Sell at farmers markets, colleges, any smaller and less expensive art shows or festivals. Get involved in your local business/entrepreneurial/women's organizations. Donate jewelry to charitable fundraising events. I love putting together a gift basket with handmade items, including some of my jewelry and my business cards of course. My gift baskets are always a big hit and they count as a charitable tax deduction. I also take part in exhibits that are hosted by some of the organizations in which I donate my jewelry. Sometimes, it doesn't even cost anything to be an exhibitor with some of these organizations. They're just happy to have people exhibiting.

So as you can see from this post, my recommendation is to set up an etsy shop and everything else that you do going forward is simply to drive traffic to that shop. Oh, and one more thing, invest in a good camera or hire someone to take decent photos.

I hope this helps. Good luck.

You have many options to choose from. I will be selling jewelry in the near future. Here is the route I intend to take. I understand it's different for everyone.

1. I will sell on Etsy as a way to gain exposure. I anticipate sales, but Etsy shouldn't be the only source for selling.

2. I will have a self-hosted store using Wordpress. This can be created using Woo Themes and their Woo Commerce plugin. There are other themes and plugins as well. You have free reign to do what you desire and don't have to worry about fees or additional charges. Nor are you at the mercy of the site owner.

3. I will have a hosted (paid) blog, which can be a part of the Wordpress site/store. Steer clear of the free blog or websites, because they can be taken down without your permission or knowledge.

4. I will have a mailing list, so potential customers can be contacted of news & new items. The sign up form will be on the blog.

5. I will have a page on Facebook where I can communicate and socialize. This is a free platform to gather ideas for future products. What do your customers want to see more of? Is there a particular style they're interested in?

6. Pinterest & Instagram are great platforms to advertise on. Since it's mainly visual, it draws interested eyes to the website.

7. On the blog, I'll show what inspired me to create each piece. I'll highlight new items are they're added to the store. I'll also have plenty of pictures. This can be of the design and creation process.

8. Videos wouldn't hurt either. Just express yourself and share what you enjoy about creating jewelry. Share info about certain materials and techniques that go into making your designs.

9. On the blog you can also share information about caring for and cleaning jewelry items. Extend information that will help the customer gain the most from doing business with you.

The more personalization - the better! Good luck

I wanted to add i like using the Ecwid shopping cart for one main reason.
They host the cart and you just add some code to your site and the cart shows up all working.

The huge benefit to this is you can create 50 wordpress sites or as many as you want and drop the shopping cart code into each one and have a full working cart in every site you make in seconds. As you add onj more sites you add the cart to each one super easy only manage one cart from your admin and all changes go out to all of your websites at once.

Ebay is a good starting point - it is better to test it with a mixture of auction and fixed price listings and to ensure you have multiple good high res quality pictures and highly detailed descriptions.

There's a lot of strong advice in your thread.

In terms of getting your store set up -- each alternative has its plusses and minuses:

- Running your own webstore means a lot of work, sometimes technical in nature. But you also have a lot more control over your online selling, the way your store looks/feels/functions/etc.

- Selling on a third-party marketplace (like Amazon or eBay) basically GUARANTEES you traffic. And a lot of it. This is why a lot of sellers like eBay and Amazon, and put up with their fees: they come with built in traffic that's guaranteed to wind up in front of your products because the visitors are searching for them.

So that's one thing to consider.

In terms of marketing? It's been mentioned a couple of times, so I'll just second the emotion and be brief.

But....

CONTENT MARKETING. Do it, and do it well. It's cost-effective, easy, and is a great way to truly touch your audience. Start a blog. Create/curate content that your audience would truly care about. Distribute it using your social media channels. Develop a strategy and operate in a way that is savvy and shrewd, so that you're not just carpet bombing the same old social media content as everyone else is.

All it takes is a bit of time and creativity. You can do it!

Hope this all helps.

I'd definitely go with Etsy and off web markets where artisans can sell their work. I suppose you could try ebay too. I suggest she gives her work as gifts to friends and then her friends can direct admirers to her Etsy site. Good luck to her.

If she starts out with her own website she'll have trouble making a name for herself and a brand, you know? She needs to start somewhere like Etsy and go from there once she cultivates a following. Like there's one Etsy seller in particular, Urban Cheese Craft who sells there and then expanded to have a site online, a paid site, selling her stuff, and finally a book! You just gottta start slow. I mean, I don't know a ton about making jewelry but it's common sense. She can't expect any visitors or buyers from a site. Too much IM knowledge is needed.

Just IMHO.

Ebay is good, but don't depend on it as the sole marketplace where you would sell.

Handmade/niche stuff like this does sell on eBay but you have alot of competition with China mass produced crap.

The sellers I've seen that have success really brand themselves well and make the buyer KNOW and FEEL like they're buying from a smaller,niche,custom seller.

For me, I would add picture of myself and show you have some PASSION for the items that you create. People really dig that these days more than what the product is all about.....

ebay is very good, Iam having my products sold through ebay,
and also, amazon is good try FBA, (Full filment by Amazon)
and i sell a lot on a gem and jewelry market called ehotbid

I put some jewelry on auction and most on fixed price ,
in a week my sale had picked up .

and also good ads work for me
try facebook ads also

be cafeful through dont over do paid add on google and facebook the you will run out of cash.

I am a huge fan of FBA but that may not be a great method for this situation. First I believe Amazon is tough about approving sellers to sell in the jewlery category. Also each specific item would require its own UPC code so it can be listed in the Amazon catalog. (UPCs can be obtained cheaply).
Despite these hurdles it may be worth looking into for the simple reason that the Amazon site has a HUGE amount of buyer traffic. Since the items sell well elsewhere they could sell very well on Amazon if you get your FBA business set up for it.

Uhmm, I would like to know, how much does it cost to build a website like this for jewelry sales? It doesn't look like something very complicated.