Table of Contents
Introduction
If you have inborn creative and artistic skills, an eye for jewels, patience and unique love for design and fashions, starting an online jewelry store will work wonders.
Building an online jewelry business is much simpler compared to starting an offline store. Beyond it being easier to launch, there are many additional benefits to launching your business online:
- Launching your business online saves rental and other overhead costs as well as employee salaries.
- Your online store can be accessible 24/7 and customers can purchase anytime as compared to fixed timings of offline stores.
- Integrating digital customer services (rather than in-person agents) like live chat can help in reducing expenses.
Moreover, Statista indicates that the global online jewelry market was valued at 21.5 billion US dollars (2020), and it is estimated to reach 60 billion US dollars by 2027. Therefore, now is the perfect time to launch your jewelry business.
In this article, we will discuss how you can start creating an online jewelry store, launching enticing jewelry designs, and implementing appropriate marketing strategies. We will also share tips on how to keep your online store growing with customers and blooming with revenues.
How to launch a successful jewelry store (Step-by-step guide)
1. Choose a specific jewelry type & define your brand:
The first thing you’ll have to do is decide what type of jewelry you want to sell.
Selection of specific jewelry for your e-commerce store is a must. There are various differnt types of jewelry that you can sell - antique jewelry, bridal jewelry, fashion jewelry, handmade or Kundan jewelry, designer jewelry, etc. It’s important to find you focus on a single type of target audience (i.e. brides, antique lovers, etc) to start so you know what exact type of jewelry to make and sell.
Here are some tips for finding the right jewelry to sell:
- Explore the current and popular types of jewelry which are in demand.
- Narrow your selection criteria and pin it down to the best one in terms of long-term demand and potential.
Once you’ve decided on the jewelry type to sell, it’s time to define your unique brand and image. Think about your USP (unique selling proposition) for your target audience to stand ahead of your competitors. To answer this question, think about “What makes my jewelry and my products unique?” A well-defined USP will help you to create a strong brand.
After that, choose an inspiring logo design with attractive colors for your brand.
2. Source the inventory:
Once you’ve decided on what you want to sell, it’s time to decide on the source of your inventory. Varied business modes and sources of inventory mentioned below can be implemented.
- Dropshipping: Dropshipping refers to an e-commerce business model where seller acts like a mediator, between the store and the customer. The seller accepts all the orders of the customer, and gives them their desired item from the store, without keeping any stock.
- Wholesaling: Wholesaling refers to a business model where the store owner buys the wholesale stock at cheap rates and resells the same in the retail market at a higher price.
- Private Labelling: Private labelling is when a store owner joins hands with a manufacturer, who makes jewelry designs solely for your brand.
- Self-manufacturing: Self-manufacturing is also a great idea if you want to be the one making the jewelry. This is the best option if you don’t want to rely on a third party.
3. Create your online store
Once you’ve chosen the type of jewelry to sell and have decided how to source the inventory, it's time to create an attractive online jewelry store.
Steps:
- Select the ideal CMS platform for your store: There are many website builders and CMS platforms that you can use to build your online store. These platforms help you in creating and manage content, products, and more.
- Our recommendation would be to use Jemi. Jemi’s ease of use, scalability, mobile-friendliness, good security, and good backend and backup solutions makes it a great option for small businesses.
- Add Jewelry Products to your Store: The addition of jewelry products to your store is a major task since there are varied aspects that need to be focused on. Aspects like a unique categorization of jewelry, creating relevant product pages, appropriate pricing of each item, displaying attractive product images, and writing enticing product descriptions, etc. need to be implemented properly.
- Set up Payments & Shipping. After the creation of the site and product display, the pricing factor needs to be quoted. Varied options need to be given to customers to pay for their desired products to grab more traffic and sales. There are varied platforms that support different payment gateways. Even payment options like PayPal, Stripe, etc. are in demand. Just ensure that you select the payment option which is user-friendly and has minimum transaction fees. Additionally, shipping rates also need to be clearly stated to avoid confusion regarding actual product prices.
- Domain name: Acquire a unique, and easy-to-remember domain name for your store. A domain name generator can also help serve the purpose. The name should be neither too short, nor too long. Include the selection type in the domain name for better network traffic.
- You can also purchase a domain name directly within website building platforms like Jemi.
- Site Security with SSL. Ensure to secure your site with SSL/TLS (Secure Socket Layer/Transport Layer Security) certificate. This certificate uses encryption security and converts your sensitive data into a non-readable format.
- For websites built on website builders like Jemi, the sites are automatically protected with free SSL certificates to improve security.
- You can also buy cheap Wildcard SSL certificates from Comodo that offers high 256-bit encryption security if you decide to make a website completely from scratch. Wildcard SSL certificate helps in securing your root domain and varied 1st level sub-domains with a single certificate. It also comes with a site seal for enhancing user trust. Its quick issuance and simple installation make it a great choice for those who want to manage their SSL certificates on their own.
4. Get ready to launch
After your online jewelry store is created, it is time to recheck all the parameters before making the final launch. Ensure that this pre-launch checklist is all ticked before you plunge into the retail market.
Pre-Launch Checklist:
Page Navigation. Check whether all the pages are properly organized or not. Ensure that the homepage is the first visible page when a customer visits your online store. Your homepage must be captivating enough for the customer and compel him to view your site.
About Us page. Do not forget to include the “About Us” page which offers a glimpse of your brand image, values, goals, and future aspirations.
Contact Us page. The inclusion of the “Contact Us” page is mandatory to imbibe trust amongst your customers. They are relieved to know that they can reach out to you in case of queries.
Website & Domain name. It’s advisable to match your site name with the domain name for better visibility.
Payments set up. Check the Payment Gateway and ensure that your customers can make payments smoothly and quickly.
Test payments. Test the Checkout page for any errors and ensure an easy and quick checkout for your customers. Any time delays in the checkout process can make customers abandon your site and move to your competitors. Ensure that this process is smooth to reduce the site abandonment rate and increase your revenues.
Review site content. Site content is a vital factor to keep your customers engaged. Audit this content and ensure that content spellings and grammar are correct, and keywords are properly placed.
Buttons. Check whether the site buttons are functioning properly and are directed to the link properly.
Set up analytics. It's vital to check the incoming traffic, conversions, etc. and the same can be possible by using the Analytics tool. Use the Google Analytics tool which can help in understanding user behavior, customization of data and other reports, enhancing online advertising, improving SEO and online marketing, and locating your target audience.
Mobile responsiveness. Check whether your online jewelry store functions perfectly on mobile devices or not. Since mobile internet traffic is also huge, your store must be visible on all devices.
5. Launch your business
Once you’ve ensured that everything is perfect, it is time to market your business. You can start off by researching how your competitors reach their customers. Based on the research, make a good marketing plan and promotion strategy to kickstart your store launch.
Here are some marketing strategies you can use:
- Social media. You can use social media platforms for marketing your jewelry designs to reach a wider audience.
- Influencer marketing. Influencer marketing is one of the best ways to market your jewelry business. Partner with fashion influencers to reach a wide audience.
- Email marketing. Email marketing is not dead! You can either work with an agency or manually find potential customers to reach out to.
Multiple marketing tricks will help in gaining a better audience and positive sales results. Create SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) goals, look out for competition, and focus on sales and revenues.
6. Grow your business
Once you’ve launched your business, it’s important to still continue to innovate and grow your business. Here are a few tips for growing your business once you launch:
- Keep your jewelry stock updated regularly to show your customers new designs and patterns.
- Keep an eye on the latest trends and try to incorporate them to stay with the market trend.
- Inform your customers about your new jewelry products in detail for better credibility and trust.
- Provide good customer service to keep your business booming and successful.
Closing thoughts
The jewelry business is constantly emerging as the most sought business and is expected to grow in the coming future. Now that you know why and how to launch a jewelry business, it’s time to get to work!
Start building your online jewelry store and business today at Jemi.so.