Creating Your Own Jewelry Business
If you’re going to start a home-based business, creating luxury goods is a great route to take. A jewelry business can be particularly lucrative if you play your cards right. With some beads and jewelry supplies, a little inspiration and a plan, a jewelry business could be your ticket to financial independence. Use the following as a rough entrepreneurial road map.
Pin Down a Great Niche
Before you do anything, you need to figure out the kind of jewelry you want to work with. Whether you plan on working with puka shells, Swarovski crystal beads or metal, targeting the right niche of potential buyers will be the key to your success. Perform extensive market research in your local area and online to identify a profitable target audience.
Source Goods & Prototype
Regardless of your niche, you’ll need plenty of raw materials like silver, ceramic, wood and even poly-carbonate to play around with. Look for bulk suppliers on the web via online directories. If you’re at a loss as to where to begin, Google is a good place to start. Whip up a few different prototype earrings, necklaces and other accessories and test them out with friends or family.
Figure Out Production
With a solid jewelry lineup worked out, you can move on to the production phase of the program. You can either manufacture the goods yourself or outsource the grunt work. Domestic and international manufacturers can be found quite easily online via directories such as ThomasNet, the National Association of Manufacturers and Global Sources.
Square Away Distribution
You’ll probably have your hands full just designing, refining and promoting your jewelry to have much time for door-to-door sales pitches. You’ll need to quickly settle on the right distribution model for your own business. You could exclusively target local shops in your area, set up an online shopping cart or use affiliates to sell your goods to the public.
Brand & Market Your Line
Ultimately, the best way to promote a niche jewelry business is through aggressive branding and word-of-mouth promotion. Make sure to trademark and copyright your creations and use social media sites like Pinterest, Google+ and Facebook to reach a wider audience. Try highlighting the unique mix of beads and jewelry supplies that you employ in your work.
Stay on Top of Your Game
As an intrinsically trendy industry, the jewelry game can change quicker than you’d think. For example, colored glass beads might be incredibly popular one year and terribly passé the next. If you want your business to go the distance, you’ll need to play around with different jewelry styles and avoid becoming complacent.
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John Woodson writes on behalf of Too Cute Beads, a site for necklace and earring kits and DIY jewelry. Become your own jewelry designer when you order from Too Cute Beads.