Sep 19, 2021
How to Start a Successful Jewelry Business
Complete Step by Step Guide
If you ever thought about starting an online jewelry store, this is the right article for you.
This article will expand more on how we launched our brand. The purpose of this article is for you to learn from my experience so that you don’t repeat the same mistakes.
I will be expanding more on:
- Why did we start this Brand?
- Defining your Brand Story
- Choosing the right materials
- Defining your Target Audience
- Creating a visual brand identity
- Sourcing your products
- Hire a Jewelry Designer
- Prototyping & Sampling
- Custom Packaging
- Setting up your online presence
Why did we start this brand?
The best ideas come to life when you are scratching your own itch. The inception of the idea originated when our co-founder was searching for jewelry to buy for herself, she realized that everything on the market was either too expensive or really bad quality and their designs were catered to the masses.
We decided to disrupt this model.
Define your Brand Story:
Here are some questions you need to ask yourself:
- What problem am I solving for the end consumer?
- What is the aesthetic of your brand?
- Do you have a particular social mission in mind?
You can go to jewelry Reddit forums and talk to your potential customers to identify unique pain points.
Choosing the right materials:
You can either choose solid gold or gold plated. But there is another option called Gold Vermeil.
Gold Vermeil is basically sterling silver with a thick layer of gold plating.
We focused on designing luxury pieces that are meant to be worn every day and gold vermeil seems to be the perfect fit for that niche.
Define your target audience
The target audience may be dictated by age, gender, income, location, interests, or a myriad of other factors. It will all depend on your budget and what price point you are targeting. You have to decide what will be your primary form of media for running ads and promoting your products. Tik-Tok might be more geared towards young consumers looking for fashion jewelry while Instagram can be geared towards affluent customers looking for fine jewelry.
It's helpful to narrow down the customer profile to the core as it can help in increasing ad conversions.
Create a Visual Brand Identity
It took us more than 2 months just to finalize the logo and the brand name. Names can be quite challenging as it’s hard to find a name that is available on all social media as a username. Regarding the logo, we iterated until we were satisfied. I would not devote this much time to make a logo until you get the product-market fit.
When it comes to designing a logo, everyone recommends using Fiverr, Freelancer, or Upwork. I, on the other hand, take a different approach. Browse through the many portfolios on Behance to pick the best three projects in your niche. After that, you can contact the designer and begin working on the brand’s visual identity. Top designers will give you a lengthy questionnaire to fill out with as much information as possible about the project.
Here’s the final version of our logo:
Sourcing your products
We changed our suppliers multiple times as we were dissatisfied with the quality. So we ended up going from China to Turkey to Thailand to India to Brazil.
And finally, we landed on a manufacturing company in Brazil that manufactures jewelry for big-name brands in Brazil.
The best way to find suppliers based on my experience is through either a Google Search or Alibaba.
Here are the top countries to find a jewelry manufacturer.
China, Thailand, India, Indonesia, Brazil, and Turkey.
Find a Designer:
Jewelry design is a complex art that takes years of technical expertise.
We found a fantastic designer on Linkedin.
We received over 200 applications when we advertised there, and after narrowing them down to ten, we conducted a phone interview with each of them before selecting one from the pool.
Also, depending on your source, you’ll have to decide whether or not you need to hire a CAD designer.
Although most factories have their own in-house CAD designers, having one can be quite advantageous in the long run.
I would recommend looking for one in India or the Philippines because hiring one in the United States might be rather costly.
Prototyping & Sampling:
The next process is to get samples manufactured before going into mass production, as prototypes frequently contain flaws that necessitate a little tweaking and modification here and there.
Find a Packaging Company:
This is important as this is how the quality of your products is perceived when customers receive your products.
Here are few places to find custom packaging:
Packaging businesses in China can be fairly costly due to their high minimum order quantity requirements.
So, depending on your budget and quality criteria, you may have it made in China or right here in the United States.
We were looking for environmentally friendly, long-lasting packaging and came across Westpack through a simple Google search. They’re a Danish company that makes fantastic eco-friendly jewelry boxes. The quality is outstanding.
Set up your online presence
Set up your store on Shopify and reserve a username on Pinterest, Youtube, Facebook, Google, Instagram, and Yelp.
Pro Tip:
Invest heavily in high-quality short movies and product photos because, in the end, it’s all about the visual.
Cheers,
Manav
