Rising globalization, digital innovation, and changes in consumer habits have caused significant shifts in the fashion industry, including the jewelry niche.
The global jewelry market is growing at about a 5% annual rate, with China being the top spender, followed by the USA at nearly $3 billion. While eCommerce currently comprises about 4% of total jewelry sales, that number is expected to trend towards 10% by 2021. The competition in this multi-billion dollar industry is getting really fierce, so starting your own online jewelry business can be intimidating.
In this article, we’re looking at 5 simple steps that will help you start off the right foot, stand apart from the competition, and grow your business.
Find Your Jewelry Niche
The type of jewelry you’re going to sell will largely depend on your target customers.
When thinking about your ideal customer persona, have in mind that women and men look for different things in jewelry. Another important factor is age. For instance, younger customers are more likely to repeatedly buy fashion jewelry than older ones. Many people can’t afford fine jewelry, while others would never buy anything less than precious gems. Some people love vintage items, while others can’t imagine wearing second-hand jewelry.
Your job is to familiarize yourself with your audience to understand what they’re looking for and better tell your jewelry’s story.
Build Your Online Jewelry Store
Create a modern, aesthetically appealing, and easy to navigate website where you will direct traffic. Choose an online store building tool that offers pre-designed themes and templates. This way, you won’t have to hire an expensive graphic designer or developer, but you’ll be able to customize your e-store yourself.
Use high-quality images and well-written product descriptions to convert customers. When it comes to eCommerce, investing in high-quality photography is of the utmost importance and in most cases, this means hiring a professional photographer. Even though this can be quite costly, it will definitely pay off in the long run. However, if you’re skilled at taking photos, you can borrow a high-end camera and take the photos yourself. The point is to get quality photos that capture the colors and intricate details of your products. This will make the customers more confident when it comes to buying from your store and help you increase sales.
Invest in Jewelry Inventory Software
When you have lots of jewelry items, it can be challenging to keep them organized by price, order number, color, size, name, and description. Investing in jewelry inventory software will allow you to organize your inventory, figure out which products are your best sellers on a per-location basis, track sales and inventory quantities, set up pricing rules and discounts, and fulfill many other inventory management needs.
In other words, jewelry inventory software gives you complete control of your inventory, allowing you to better serve your customers and increase sales.
Build Your Brand
Once you’ve defined your niche and target audience, you’re ready to tell the story about your brand. Write something simple on your website’s homepage that tells people why you started your business and what makes your products unique. Plus you should review other jewelry designers' websites to help stay current.
Decide on the tone you want to use when communicating with your potential customers. For instance, if you’re selling trendy jewelry, use a playful and slightly catchy tone. On the other hand, if your products are custom-made or carefully-selected pieces, you should share the stylistic details and historical background of your jewelry and come across as an expert.
Invest in beautiful, on-brand packaging when you ship out your jewelry. In addition, consider a discount code for the customer’s next purchase and a thank-you note in order to encourage future purchases.
Focus on Marketing
Your next step is to create a detailed marketing plan which will outline your efforts to advertise to your potential customers. Here are some options to consider:
- Social media
One of the cheapest and most efficient channels you can use is social media. Social networks can be a powerful tool for building a strong online presence, increasing brand exposure, and connecting with your potential customers. However, if you want to reap the benefits of social media, you’ll need to do much more than posting a bunch of finished products.
Take advantage of social platforms like Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, and Twitter to promote your products but also to educate your audience and engage your followers.
Don’t forget to monitor your accounts frequently. Make sure to reply to users who engage with your posts, even with just a simple “thank you.” In addition, try to share content from others because people don’t like when all you do is talk about yourself!
This way, you’ll be able to build a network of potential customers who are engaged with your brand.
Create a newsletter signup form on your site where you will explain to people what they can expect to receive from you and how often. Building an email list will take some time, but it will pay off in the long run. When it comes to what you should be sending in your emails, options include sales, special offers, customer photos, fun features, etc. Be creative and have fun!
- Blogging
Blog posts are a great opportunity to drive more traffic to your site. Search engines like to see regularly updated blogs, which means they will rank your e-store higher in their SERPs. In addition, having a blog will help you establish yourself as an industry expert and highlight your unique selling propositions. Make sure to keep your blog creative, informative, engaging, and fun so that people will want to come back for more!
There you have it. Now you have the tools you need to make your business sparkle!
