You put a lot of love and effort into making your jewelry.

When you offer your jewelry for sale online, either through your own website or an online market like etsy.com, you want to make sure that a prospective customer can see just how important that jewelry piece is to you.

The best way to express that is through the quality of the photograph you take of each jewelry piece you offer.

It should come as no surprise to you that the higher quality the photograph, the better chance you have of getting a sale, and the better chance you have of getting a higher price for your creations.

Of course, you can invest in a good digital camera, learn about proper lighting and set up, and take the photos on your own.

That’s what I used to do, but I found that it took way too much of my time so I started looking to see if I could outsource this to a professional photographer.

Even as I started looking, to be honest I didn’t think it would be cost effective.

I found an online outsourcing service called elance.com (www.elance.com) and submitted my project to see if any photographers would bid on it.

To my surprise, there were many independent photographers who bid and the cost of their proposals varied greatly.

What I discovered is that you can get very high quality photography done by someone else in the range of $10~$20/piece, including shipping to and from the photographer.

Of course, this price is somewhat volume based meaning taking photos of 10 or more items.

Naturally, it is more cost effective for higher priced jewelry than for very low price jewelry, particularly if the jewelry piece is a one-of-a-kind piece that you plan to only make one of.

But if you are going to make many pieces of the same design, then I highly recommend that you look into outsourcing your photography because you can spread the cost of one picture across multiple sales of individual jewelry pieces.

Also keep in mind two other things when considering the cost per piece.

First, if all the time you take to photograph your own jewelry is taking away time that you could be using to work on more valuable income and profit generating activities, then you should include that consideration when evaluating whether outsourcing photography is right for you or not.

Second, remember that a very high quality photograph can help you demand a higher price for your jewelry, possibly even a price that more than covers the extra cost of the outsourced photography.

Back to my own story about outsourcing photography and what I did.

I looked at the portfolios of all the photographers that bid on my project, weighed that against the prices they offered for their services, and I settled on one photographer.

I have been very happy with the quality of her work and the value is excellent.

She took the picture of the beaded heart rings at the top of this page.

Her name is Rosie and if you would like to take a look at her work and/or contact her about your jewelry photography project you can check out her website here: Let Me Grow Studio

Good luck with your jewelry pictures!

As we all know by now, the US economy and probably most every other economy in the world has fallen into a recession.

It’s been a while since there was a serious economic recession, but one thing’s for sure.

There aren’t many products or services that are immune to the negative effects of a recession, particulary products that aren’t considered life necessities.

As much as I love making jewelry, I’d be hard pressed to say that jewelry is a life necessity.

Nonetheless, there are still ways to “sell” your jewelry even if you don’t receive cash in return?

What am I talking about?

Bartering.

I read this article about a jewelry maker who barters her work for other goods and services she needs.

In a recession, a prospective customer is much less likely to give you their cash for a piece of jewelry that they want to buy.

However, if that same customer has something, a product or a service, that you want to buy then you have the opportunity for a potential barter.

Check out the article and see if it helps spark some ideas about opportunities to barter your handmade jewelry items.

Barter Your Jewelry

Sometimes you see an idea that seems so obvious that you want to kick yourself for not thinking of it yourself.

Obviously, there has been a lot of excitement in recent months in the US about the presidential election.

Whether you supported Barak Obama or not you have to admit that he created a couple of different slogans during both his primary and presidential campaigns that struck a chord with many Americans.

The first one was “Change”, and then he followed that up with “Yes We Can.”

As those slogans took hold in the minds of many Americans, smart marketers of products that people can wear (like jewelry!) could take advantage of this by creating custom items with those slogans on them.

That’s exactly what a jewelry maker in Rhode Island did.

His primary business is laser engraving wedding rings with whatever messages people want on them, but he made a connection between his capability to do that and the Obama slogans and created a commemorative Yes We Can ring.

That is very smart marketing.

You can read more about his ring here: Commemorative Yes We Can Ring

As a handcrafted jewelry maker, can you think of trends like this that you can take advantage of by offering a personalized version of your jewelry creations?

There’s no doubt about it. When you set up a booth to sell your jewelry, your sales results will depend greatly on how your jewelry is displayed.

This may seem like common sense but when I think about many of the booths I have seen at craft shows very few invest much time, thought, or money in their jewelry displays.

I think folks get very caught up in how attractive the jewelry is and forget that they have to enhance that attractiveness with attractive displays.

Think about it.

Imagine walking in two different retail apparel stores that have exactly the same clothes.

One store just puts all their clothes on standard hangers and standard hanger racks.

The other store uses fashionable manequins, nice lighting, and product positioning to create a more valuable look.

Not only will this second store sell a lot more, they will also be able to command a higher price.

Those rules apply to your jewelry booth as well!

Fortunately, there is great information available to help you with your displays.

Rena Klingenberg offers an incredible amount of valuable information about jewelry displays on her website.

I recommend that you read all the articles she has there. You will learn many tips that will help you increase sales at your next craftshow.

Here’s the link to her webpage:

Displaying Jewelry

One of the things I have always loved about the business of making and selling handcrafted jewelry is that I don’t have to actually do much selling.

All you have to do is wear your jewelry and as long as you’ve made something that is eye-catching and appealing, someone is going to ask you, “Where did you get that?”

When you answer, “I made it myself” you are on your way to one of the easiest and most enjoyable ways to sell.

When people really like your jewelry they will say something like, “Do you sell any of jewelry?”

How easy is that? It’s a salesperson’s dream situation.

Yesterday, I read a blog post that reminded me again about how much fun it is to sell jewelry like this.

But what I really liked about this one is the unique item the jewelry artist uses to show off her jewelry making skills.

She uses a lanyard that she made to hold her YMCA member card. What a cool idea!

Check out the article she wrote about this, and look around her website as well.

There are a ton of tips on her site about making Polymer Clay beads. 

Custom Beaded Lanyard

I found a great “how-to” article on pricing your jewelry. I sold jewelry at a local craft show this past weekend so I am always wondering if I priced my jewelry correctly.

This article gives great tips for how to price your jewelry.

from wikiHow – The How to Manual That You Can Edit

Figuring out how to price your designs is one of the least glamorous parts of running a successful jewelry design business. Pricing your designs can be tricky, especially if you design one of a kind pieces, but it is an essential step you must take to turn your hobby into a profitable business. Once you understand the costs of your business, and what you expect to profit from your work, creating a formula to price your designs is a simple process.

Keep a “recipe book” to record exactly what was spent to create each design. You will basically need to price each item used in your designs. For example, if you pay $1.50 for a dozen sterling crimp beads, and you used 2 crimps beads in your design, you would divide $1.50 by 12 (12.5¢ per crimp bead), and multiply by 2, totalling 25¢ for the crimp beads in this design. This makes it much easier to calculate the exact cost of each design. The more meticulous you are about calculating expenses, the better your pricing will be. Even the packing materials you use for the design and the shipping costs of the supplies should be accounted for. Keep receipts — this will also come in handy during tax time, if you want to deduct business expenses. Remember that materials cost is only one aspect of the costs involved in your designs.

Record your time spent on each design. How quickly can you design and complete your jewelry? Second to quality, speed is a key factor in profitability. If it takes you 30 minutes to recreate a design, you would charge differently than a design that takes 4-5 hours to create. Write your time spent in your recipe book. Decide how much you would need to pay a worker to do your job, and pay yourself at that rate. This is a vital aspect of the costs involved in your designs; don’t ignore it! Sooner than you think, you may decide to hire a friend to help you prepare for a show or party. The hourly wage paid to a worker, whether that person is you, or someone you hire, must be built into your price scheme, or you will not be able to remain in business. If you begin by charging $10/hr for your work, and a necklace takes you 2 hours to make, you will add $20 to the materials cost of your necklace for your time. As you become more experienced, you will charge more for your skill and expertise.

Add Overhead and Profit. *Everyone has a different method of calculating their overhead costs, but there is ALWAYS some overhead. What is overhead? Overhead covers a myriad of “hidden costs” and ignoring it is a fast way to underprice yourself out of business. When you first begin, overhead includes the shipping costs you pay to have your beads shipped to you, the investment you make every time you purchase a new pair of pliers, a work table, storage boxes, or price tags. Overhead includes every bead that rolled under the couch or down the street, and every item dropped in the grass during packing, or (sad, but it happens occassionally) stolen from your booth or table. It covers the cost of gas and insurance when you pick up tools and materials, and it covers all of the materials that get “used up” in the creation of your product, such as glue, solder, string, wire, coatings/finishes, etc. It covers the time and cost of advertising, whether you spend time emailing your customers, or printing and mailing glossy postcards. It covers office expenses like business cards, computer paper and ink, packing slips, receipts, brochures, inventories, and more. Later on, overhead covers more expensive outlay of capital, such as rent, phone, computers, electric, heat, torches, gas, solder, flux, chemicals, and more expensive equipment to build your studio and your business. Profit is what you add to your price to help your business grow. Profit is NOT the same as what you pay for labor. You may own your business and pay someone else to make all of the jewelry. They are paid for their labor, but the business still needs to make a profit, or it can’t grow. Profit allows you to lay out the money for 3 strands of beads this week, when you could only afford two last week. Some calculations for profit and overhead can be complicated, but a quick and simple starting point is given below.

Calculate the price. Using a formula will give you a starting point, and you can tweak the price with the steps that follow. Which formula you use, however, will depend on whether you’re selling retail (directly to customers) or wholesale (to stores, for example).

• Wholesale – Take the total cost of your supplies plus your time, multiply by 1.5 (some people multiply by 2). Multiplying by 1.5 – 2 covers your overhead and profit to start with. You may adjust down if you are just starting, and expenses are minimal, or up if you are actively building a larger business. For example, if I am just starting and have low overhead, I may charge $8/hr and take 1 hour to make a bracelet using $5 in materials; my price will be $5(mater.) + $8(time) = $13(cost) x 1.5 (overhd/profit) = $19.50 wholesale price. With more expensive equipment, more experience, and a product that requires a higher level of skill, I may charge $5 + 15/hr, x 2 = $40 wholesale. You can charge less for your jewelry if you’re selling wholesale because you spend less time marketing to individual customers (advertising, processing orders, maintaining a shopping cart website, maintaining a store, etc.) and more time actually making jewelry. You should verify that your market can afford a mark-up, using the next few steps. A wholesale operation will be selling your piece for around twice as much as you sell it to them. Many jewelry designers find that selling wholesale allows them to achieve business growth and profitability. When you use the 1.5 factor, you are allowing room for shop owners to sell your designs and even offer sales and discounts on your designs, if a certain design doesn’t sell quickly enough. This may sound like a lot, but make sure that you consider the amount of time and labor you put into developing and creating your pieces as well as the boutique owner’s expenses.

• Retail – Take the total cost of your supplies plus your time, multiply it times 3 (or 4), and there’s your retail price. This is the same as wholesale x 2. A spreadsheet is perfect for this step. Simply set up a table of products used, your time, and then a formula to calculate the pricing using the 3 or other multiple. Ex: for the first example given above, I would simply multiply $19.50 (wholesale price) x 2, for a $39 retail price. In the second case, retail might be $40 x 2 + $80. There is a lot of room for adjustment here. If your business has a physical storefront, you have to take into consideration that there are additional costs. Rent, employee pay, utilities, displays and fixtures, and property taxes all need to be considered in your pricing strategy. Even if you sell at a booth at a crafts market, you need to consider your transportation to and from the market, your time spent at the market, and all the supplies involved (tent, tables, food, signs, displays, bags, receipts, etc.). You may find that in your market, you need to price at 3 to 5 times your cost of materials plus time. This price allows you to cover the cost of buying your materials, paying (yourself or someone else) to make the pieces, selling them at wholesale with minimal overhead and profit covered (x 1.5 – 2), and then selling at retail yourself (2x wholesale), where a weekend booth at a moderately high end show may cost $500-$700.

Adjust for the cost of your labor. *The difference between a hobby and a business is whether you get a paycheck, so decide how much you want to make per hour, and make sure that your labor is accounted for in the price. Treat yourself as an employee who doesn’t work for free. If you have employees, consider the cost of paying them in addition to your own salary. Let’s say, for example, the cost of supplies for your design is $10. If you want to pay yourself $10 per hour and you spent 2 hours on this design, then you really need to be charging at least $60 for the piece ($10 supplies, $20 labor, $30 approximate overhead and profit, depending on wholesale or retail). There may be additional costs to consider, such as your storefront, or time spent marketing (e.g. creating a brochure).

• When deciding how much to pay yourself hourly, consider your experience. How long have you been designing jewelry? If you have a long track record, vast expertise, and a portfolio of unique designs, you may find that you can charge more. You may have particular advantages, including contacts, unique designs, high level skills, or ability to work with uncommon materials that allow you to charge more.

• To repeat–just because you enjoy doing the work doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get paid for it! Make sure you’re getting at least minimum wage. If not, you may quickly decide that your time “just isn’t worth it”.

Perform market research. Now that you have an idea of what you want to charge for a design, it’s time to dip your toes in the market and see if the piece can be profitable. Generally, it’s a good idea to start off with the highest price you think the market will bear, because you can always bring it down. Have you visited craft shows, jewelry parties, and researched the web to see what work similar to yours is selling for?

• Have people offered to buy any of your jewelry designs? This is a good indication of the marketability of your designs. If your coworkers fight over a necklace you made, that may be a good sign that there is a market for your design. Friends and coworkers are also good sounding boards for prices. Ask them how much they think your design is worth, and what they would pay for it.

• Examine past success. Have you already sold any of your jewelry? This is important too in that it gives you concrete information on how much you can sell a design for. You may hear from friends of coworkers that they would pay $XX for a design, but an actual sale is real, concrete evidence.

• Has an experienced designer evaluated your work? Having the opinion of another designer can be valuable in determining the level of quality of your work, and what you can expect to get for it.

Re-evaluate the design. If you encountered feedback in the previous step which indicates that the price you arrived at isn’t going to fly, you have some thinking to do about this design.

• If you do not find interest for a particular design, you may want to think of changing the design.

• Assess your materials. Do you design using sterling findings and semi-precious beads, or less expensive beads? Higher quality materials will always command a higher price in the market. You may want to consider making designs with both high quality materials, and less expensive materials. This will allow you to attract business from both the high end buyer, and the more budget minded buyer.

• Don’t cut yourself short just to “break in” to the market (e.g. selling to customers at wholesale prices). This will only get people used to cheap prices, and it’ll be difficult to raise them later on, jeopardizing your chances of ever making your business profitable. It’s better to redesign or reject pieces that don’t cover their costs as described above. People are often suspicious of products sold at unusually low prices; most of us have internalized the idea that ‘you get what you pay for’. Cheap prices are often interpreted as cheap materials and workmanship. If your pieces aren’t selling well, try raising your prices. It goes against our intuition, but you may be surprised at the results!

Tips

• As you become more experienced, you’ll find which prices cover your unique costs while still generating sales. For example, if you’re doing a lot of beadwork and wirework where the supply cost is low but the time spent is high, and you’re selling retail only through a website, the following could be a better formula:[1]

• (cost of materials x 2) + (time spent on piece x hourly rate)

• calculate 30% of the previous figure and add it to the previous figure to account for overhead

• multiply the figure by 2 to get the retail price

Sources and Citations

• HHHenterprises.com – Source of information.
• Erayo.com – Source of information.

1. ↑ http://jewelrymaking.allinfoabout.com/features/pricing.html
2. ↑ http://jewelrymaking.allinfoabout.com/features/pricing.html

Article provided by wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world’s largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Price Your Jewelry Designs. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

Are you interested in selling more of your jewelry?

With the holiday season starting soon you should already be ramping up for the biggest selling time of the year.

However, if you are serious about selling jewelry than it’s not just about the holiday season for you.

It’s a year round venture, and to get the most out of your efforts you should be constantly looking for advice and tips that will help you sell more.

Dr. David Weiman offers an E-book that gives you 50 ideas for how to improve your jewelry sales.

And the best part is the E-book is free!

Here is a link to his e-Book:

50 Great Jewelry Selling Techniques

I love reading Rena Klingenberg’s “Home Jewelry Business Success Tips” website.

There is a wealth of information there that will help you enjoy greater success selling your handcrafted jewelry.

I have used many of Rena’s techniques and can vouch that they work.

Recently, Rena did something that I think will give you great insight into understanding what in marketing is called the “Voice of the Customer.”

She asked customers who buy handcrafted jewelry the reasons why they do, and asked for their suggestions as well.

The responses are very enlightening and if you are in the business of selling your handmade jewelry then I highly recommend that you head over to Rena’s website and read every response to the survey.

Come to think of it, don’t just read the responses, but take notes about how you can implement some of these customer’s suggestions into your own jewelry selling efforts.

Here is just a sample of some of the terrific insights direct from different buyers of handmade jewelry:

“Handcrafted jewellery is a terrific way to make your own style statement.”

“I like buying from a crafter, but I have a tight budget. I think it is a great idea to have high end items for high end people, but those of us in the lower middle class like nice things, too, and we would like some choices. I’m willing to spend $20-$30 on something nice but beyond that, we’re getting into my grocery money.”

“Also, it is really nice to hear or read the story of a piece of jewelry–how the artist got the idea, what the materials are, where they came from, etc. That becomes part of the artifact as well as the buying experience.”

“I have one suggestion that I think more artists should offer, and that is personalized items. I don’t mean a design that I request. I mean like the artist gives me a survey to fill out about myself, and the artist creates something built on the survey I submitted. That would be very cool. It would show me what the artist thinks of me, and it would be about me.”

“Third, being able to give a gift to friend or loved one, and being able to tell them a personal story of the artisan who made the piece connects to my travels, and I’m able to say, “I thought of you when I saw this piece, and here’s why…”.

“Unfortunately, I think there is a lot of really generic-looking jewelry being passed off at craft fairs, so if you make an effort to have high quality and professional products, display, and packaging, you will stand out and customers will appreciate it.”

“I like that the artists who make these unique pieces of jewelry are doing it for the love of the art. They are not standing at a machine all day, cranking out thousands of the same item. They put part of themselves into their art, and it shows. It makes me proud to wear something of theirs.”

Here is the link to Rena’s article where you can read all of the survey responses in detail:

How to Sell More Handcrafted Jewelry

Sustainable jewelry may not have much to do with your jewelry making right now, but it is a trend to keep an eye on.

I have heard about sustainable jewelry before, but today I found something that really surprised me.

A major retailer the likes of Walmart is offering sustainable jewelry as one of its product lines.

The new line is called Love, Earth jewelry.

This is part of Walmart’s push to become a more environmentally friendly company. I think it is a significant trend because as the largest retailer in the world by far, other retailers watch what Walmart does.

If they have some success with this line you can expect to see other companies follow suit.

So when they say sustainable jewelry, what do they mean exactly?

The whole idea is that there are multiple steps in the jewelry making process (mining, refining, polishing, cutting, and manufacturing) that have an impact on the environment.

Of course, that impact could be positive, neutral, or negative.

Walmart established what it calls a Jewelry Sustainable Value Network to ensure that jewelry produced for the Love, Earth line has a reduced negative impact on the environment.

It established a set of criteria for mining and metals that it encourages its suppliers to adhere to.

Part of that process is to give each customer of Love, Earth jewelry the opportunity to trace the production process of each piece of jewelry all the way back to the very first steps.

When you buy the jewelry you simply use the ID tag and go to a website and enter the number and the site displays a record of the jewelry’s production history.

What intrigues me about this is if it becomes a long term trend where all jewelry consumers expect the retailer to prove that the jewelry they bought was produced without having a negative impact on the environment, that consumer expectation will eventually make its way into handcrafted jewelry as well.

If you want to read more about this you can visit this website: http://www.loveearthinfo.com/

Here is a video where you can see some of the Love, Earth jewelry line.

As we are getting closer to the beginning of the holiday season, many handcrafted jewelry makers are starting to gear up for participating in craft shows where they can sell their jewelry.

As with most businesses that sell finished craft products directly to consumers, the holiday season is the most important time of the year for selling handcrafted jewelry.

But with the turmoil taking place in most economies this will probably be one of the most difficult selling years in recent memory for jewelry artisans.

So should you just throw your hands up and let your sales results be determined completely by the downturn in the economy?

Is there anything at all you can do to fight back?

The answer is YES.

I found a very good video from Dr. David Weiman which gives you some solid tips for how to sell most effectively when the economy turns sour.

Dr. Weiman is well known in the jewelry making industry for offering seminars and resources that help jewelry artisans make the most of their selling and marketing efforts.

Here is a summary of the main points that Dr. Weiman covers in his short video:

1) Focus on the things you can control
2) Focus on value
3) Focus on trust
4) Focus on Traditional Buying Times
5) Offer products with different price levels
I have included Dr. Weiman’s video below so that you can listen to the detailed explanation of each of these points.

If you follow through on his suggestions, I believe you will increase your chances of avoiding the holiday sales blues this season.