Selling Your Jewelry In Recessionary Times
As we work our way out of our CoVid pandemic shut-down, we can assume that a financial crisis will be the next phase we need to overcome. Because of this, we can anticipate things may become more difficult to sell your jewelry. Fewer stores, fewer customers, fewer craft shows. At the same time, the costs of all the supplies — beads, stringing materials, jewelry findings — have been increasing at much faster rates than inflation. This adds to the problem.
Also, at the same time, it will get more difficult to get your “message” to your “customer.” With things like blogs, facebook, instagram, twitter, other interactive sites and social networks, people are organizing into ever-smaller market niches. It’s too expensive and too time-consuming to get enough people to be aware of your business, that you can continue to make a living.
They are no longer reading the mainstream magazines and newspapers to get their primary sources of information, to the extent that they have in the past. They are not going to local craft shows or local stores as much, because they are sheltering in place, restricting their shopping, and have an online world of Etsy and Ebay and 26 million jewelry sites listed on Google.
Perhaps these upcoming times and prospects can be reinterpreted as an opportunity to rethink how you approach your jewelry selling business. At the least, perhaps you can better secure your base during these times, in preparation for more growth and expansion as we finally return to more a sense of normalcy over the next year or so.
It’s time to take a hard look at your “business model.”
You have probably been operating as a one or two person operation. You, or both of you, do everything. You create the designs. You make the jewelry. You market and sell your jewelry. You wear many hats.
“Unbundling” is a strategy where you give up control of some business functions, and rely on the expertise of other companies or organized groups. One obvious thing is to rely on USPS or UPS or FedEX for your shipping needs.
I suggest you think about no-cost and low-cost ways to unbundle some of your marketing and promotion. One inexpensive and effective way is to get a regular group together of others who sell hand-crafted jewelry or other hand-crafted items.
As a group,
– develop and share mailing and emailing lists
– try to brand the group with an identify of having quality, affordable hand crafted items for sale
– have a major presence, even a controlling presence, at a local craft show
– generate a logo that everyone includes on their websites and their packaging
– set up your own blog and try to attract potential customers to your blog
– interlink your websites into a web-ring
– have regular discussions about business strategies
– approach suppliers as a group to bargain for group discounts
On one level, you give up some control in managing these aspects of your business. On another, however, you get to leverage the talents and time and resources of these other businesses. This might be the smartest way to continue to reach your customers, and continue surviving and thriving when things are tough, and the business environment keeps changing and evolving.
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Other Articles of Interest by Warren Feld:
Should I Set Up My Craft Business On A Marketplace Online?
The Importance of Self-Promotion: Don’t Be Shy
Are You Prepared For When The Reporter Comes A-Calling?
A Fool-Proof Formula For Pricing And Selling Your Jewelry
Designer Connect Profile: Tony Perrin, Jewelry Designer
My Aunt Gert: Illustrating Some Lessons In Business Smarts
Copyrighting Your Pieces: Let’s Not Confuse The Moral With The Legal Issues
Naming Your Business / Naming Your Jewelry
Jewelry Making Materials: Knowing What To Do
To What Extent Should Business Concerns Influence Artistic and Jewelry Design Choices
How Creatives Can Successfully Survive In Business
Getting Started In Business: What You Do First To Make It Official
I hope you found this article useful. Be sure to click the CLAP HANDS icon at the bottom of this article.
Also, check out my website (www.warrenfeldjewelry.com).
Subscribe to my Learn To Bead blog (https://blog.landofodds.com).
Visit Land of Odds online (https://www.landofodds.com)for all your jewelry making supplies.
Enroll in my jewelry design and business of craft video tutorials online.
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CONQUERING THE CREATIVE MARKETPLACE: Between the Fickleness of Business and the Pursuit of Design
How dreams are made
between the fickleness of business
and the pursuit of jewelry design
This guidebook is a must-have for anyone serious about making money selling jewelry. I focus on straightforward, workable strategies for integrating business practices with the creative design process. These strategies make balancing your creative self with your productive self easier and more fluid.
Based both on the creation and development of my own jewelry design business, as well as teaching countless students over the past 35+ years about business and craft, I address what should be some of your key concerns and uncertainties. I help you plan your road map.
Whether you are a hobbyist or a self-supporting business, success as a jewelry designer involves many things to think about, know and do. I share with you the kinds of things it takes to start your own jewelry business, run it, anticipate risks and rewards, and lead it to a level of success you feel is right for you, including
· Getting Started: Naming business, identifying resources, protecting intellectual property
· Financial Management: basic accounting, break even analysis, understanding risk-reward-return on investment, inventory management
· Product Development: identifying target market, specifying product attributes, developing jewelry line, production, distribution, pricing, launching
· Marketing, Promoting, Branding: competitor analysis, developing message, establishing emotional connections to your products, social media marketing
· Selling: linking product to buyer among many venues, such as store, department store, online, trunk show, home show, trade show, sales reps and showrooms, catalogs, TV shopping, galleries, advertising, cold calling, making the pitch
· Resiliency: building business, professional and psychological resiliency
· Professional Responsibilities: preparing artist statement, portfolio, look book, resume, biographical sketch, profile, FAQ, self-care
548pp.
SO YOU WANT TO BE A JEWELRY DESIGNER
Merging Your Voice With Form
So You Want To Be A Jewelry Designer reinterprets how to apply techniques and modify art theories from the Jewelry Designer’s perspective. To go beyond craft, the jewelry designer needs to become literate in this discipline called Jewelry Design. Literacy means understanding how to answer the question: Why do some pieces of jewelry draw your attention, and others do not? How to develop the authentic, creative self, someone who is fluent, flexible and original. How to gain the necessary design skills and be able to apply them, whether the situation is familiar or not.
588pp, many images and diagrams Ebook , Kindle or Print formats
The Jewelry Journey Podcast
“Building Jewelry That Works: Why Jewelry Design Is Like Architecture”
Podcast, Part 1
Podcast, Part 2
PEARL KNOTTING…Warren’s Way
Easy. Simple. No tools. Anyone Can Do!
I developed a nontraditional technique which does not use tools because I found tools get in the way of tying good and well-positioned knots. I decided to bring two cords through the bead to minimize any negative effects resulting from the pearl rotating around the cord. I only have you glue one knot in the piece. I use a simple overhand knot which is easily centered. I developed a rule for choosing the thickness of your bead cord. I lay out different steps for starting and ending a piece, based on how you want to attach the piece to your clasp assembly.
184pp, many images and diagrams Ebook, Kindle or Print
SO YOU WANT TO DO CRAFT SHOWS:16 Lessons I Learned Doing Craft Shows
In this book, I discuss 16 lessons I learned, Including How To (1) Find, Evaluate and Select Craft Shows Right for You, (2) Determine a Set of Realistic Goals, (3) Compute a Simple Break-Even Analysis, (4) Develop Your Applications and Apply in the Smartest Ways, (5) Understand How Much Inventory to Bring, (6) Set Up and Present Both Yourself and Your Wares, (7) Best Promote and Operate Your Craft Show Business before, during and after the show.
198pp, many images and diagrams, Ebook, Kindle or Print
BASICS OF BEAD STRINGING AND ATTACHING CLASPS
Learning Bead Stringing Is More Than
Putting Beads On A String And Tying On A Clasp
There is an art and skill to stringing beads. First, of course, is the selection of beads for a design, and the selection of the appropriate stringing material. Then is the selection of a clasp or closure, appropriate to the design and use of the piece.
You want your pieces to be appealing. You want them to wear well. You want someone to wear them or buy them. This means understanding the basic techniques, not only in terms of craft and art, but also with considerations about architecture, mechanics, and some sociology, anthropology and psychology.
In this book, I go into depth about: (1) Choosing stringing materials, and the pros and cons of each type, (2) Choosing clasps, and the pros and cons of different clasps, (3) All about the different jewelry findings and how you use them, (4) Architectural considerations and how to build these into your pieces, (5) How better designers use cable wires and crimp, as well as, use needle and thread to string beads, (6) How best to make stretchy bracelets, (7) How to make adjustable slip knots, coiled wire loops, and silk wraps, (8) How to finish off the ends of thicker cords or ropes, so that you can attach a clasp, (9) How to construct such projects as eyeglass leashes, mask chains, lariats, multi-strand pieces, twist multi-strand pieces, and memory wire bracelets, (10) How different teaching paradigms — craft vs. art vs. design — might influence the types of choices you make.
452 pp, many images, illustrations, diagrams, Ebook, Kindle or Print
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