If you sell handcrafted jewelry, you probably experience times when your jewelry won’t sell despite your best marketing efforts. If you’re dependent on your jewelry as your primary source of income, this can be a very frustrating and even scary experience. No need to panic! It may be time to take a fresh look at your jewelry designs.
How to Sell Handcrafted Jewelry When Nothing is Selling
The first step to correcting this problem is to step back and take an objective look at what you’re offering your customer.Take a brief time away from your jewelry designs to release any emotional energy that may be blocking your ability to be objective. Sometimes jewelry designers are so emotionally involved with their craft that we can’t see their own work objectively. Take a day or two off and do some things that you really enjoy doing. Take long walks through the woods, take some scenic bicycle rides, have a leisurely lunch and don’t think about selling handcrafted jewelry. Soon you’ll be relaxed and ready to start the reevaluation process.
Take out some of your pieces of jewelry on their display cards and place them on a large, solid white cloth. Try to look at your jewelry designs as if you’re seeing them for the first time. Ask yourself these questions:
1. Do your designs look as updated and fresh as when you first started selling handcrafted jewelry or do they look like last year’s offerings? Customers love newness! One difficult aspect of the jewelry business is that it’s subject to trends – which makes people want to always see something new. On the other hand, it’s a positive because people have to keep buying to stay in style.
2. Can you buy jewelry designs similar to yours at local department stores and other mass markets. Be honest. Do you TRULY have something unique to offer your customers? If not, you’ll end up trying to compete on the basis of price when you sell handcrafted jewelry which isn’t a good situation.
3. Is your jewelry display card consistent with your jewelry and your overall theme. Natural stone jewelry shouldn’t be displayed on a brightly colored card. An understated, elegant card with soothing, natural colors would be more appropriate. Selling handcrafted jewelry is all about consistency.
4. What does your jewelry card say? Does it tell a story about you and your handmade jewelry? Does it make people feel good about buying from you? This is what separates your jewelry from mass market jewelry which is often produced overseas by a disinterested group of workers. Let your customers know about you, the jewelry designer and why your designs are special. Establish a connection with your customer and you’ll make your customer feel good about buying from you.
5. How about your prices? How do they compare to what you see similar handmade jewelry selling for? Don’t assume that your jewelry can only be priced too high! Underpricing can give the perception that your jewelry is of poor quality or that you have no confidence in your design ability. Sometimes raising prices increases sales.
6. Are you selling your handmade jewelry in the right places? Many people sell their jewelry designs at craft shows and local boutiques. If you make unique, high end jewelry that should sell at a high price, you’re not going to have much luck at your local flea market. It may be time to apply to some of the juried, higher end art and craft shows. Likewise, higher end jewelry isn’t going to be a big hit at a boutique that sells discount clothing.
7. Is your jewelry consistent with the prevailing color and size trends? Of course, you don’t want to be completely dictated by the current fashion mania, but you may have problems selling little button earrings when the hottest earring trend is a shoulder dusting dangle. If the big color trend of the season happens to be pastels, it stands to reason that people will be eager to buy jewelry to go with the current clothing colors. You may have a problem if your jewelry consists primarily of dark, muted shades.
Now that you’ve taken a fresh look at your jewelry designs, is it time to make some changes? One word of warning, don’t make more than one change at a time. Start with one simple change and test your market to see how it responds so you can identify which change brought results. Give this method a try when selling handcrafted jewelry and see if it helps to jumpstart your jewelry sales.