2. Determine necessary site functionality for your online jewelry store.

To ensure your online jewelry store is set up for success, you’ll need the following site functionality:

To ensure your online jewelry store is set up for success, you’ll need the following site functionality:

With support like this, successfully managing your online jewelry brand will be easier than you ever imagined. It’s a win-win for both your company and your customers.

How you integrate payments will depend on whether your business is multi- or omni-channel. When thinking about how your business is aligned, consider plans for both online and offline strategies. To make sure we’re on the same page, here are some simple definitions.

If you have an omnichannel business, it is likely a better decision to integrate your online sales with your current Point of Sale (POS) system.

If you have a multi-channel business, it may be time to consider a POS integration. Most ecommerce platforms can integrate with your current POS system or help facilitate a new one, such as Square and BigCommerce.

Remember: customers love flexible options, so do your best to include an assortment of payment options (e.g. credit card, Apple Pay, PayPal).

4. Identify who will be in charge of online orders.

Online order management is an integral part of ecommerce success.

Identify a key stakeholder in your business to oversee the online order process. This person will be responsible for understanding the checkout journey, solving order issues and contributing to an overall customer service strategy.

5. Develop a system for integrating product inventory.

Effective product inventory management is important because, depending on your niche, jewelry sales can be strongly influenced by seasonality.

While everyday, affordable, fashion-type purchases remain fairly consistent throughout the calendar year, niches like fine jewelry experience higher demand around Mother’s Day, holiday, and wedding seasons.

Monitoring your sales will also give you insight as to how your supply and demand grows over time. Take this growth into consideration when developing a product inventory system.

There are two easy options when it comes to product inventory integration:

Once you have a system in place, think about how you want to display inventory levels to customers. Tip: underpromise, overdeliver.

6. Figure out shipping and fulfillment.

First, you’ll want to choose a carrier (e.g. FedEx) and shipping service (e.g. FedEx Ground) that works best for your business.

Depending on the size of your team, product catalog, and order flow, you may handle shipping and fulfillment entirely in-house. For others, cost effective options such as dropshipping, third party logistics (3PL), or a combination of in-house and dropship fulfillment may offer more timely management.

You also need to decide how your items will be packaged. This is an extension of your brand and options vary depending on fulfillment type.

In efforts to communicate brand values or to connect with customers, companies have begun to pay more attention-to-detail on sustainable packaging, “unboxing” experiences often shared on social media, and may even invest in customized packing materials (e.g. Noissue).

7. Determine which ecommerce platform fits the needs of your business.

How you build and power your website impacts the way you manage and optimize your online jewelry store. Bringing your store online requires a whole new toolset, which might initially feel overwhelming.

Have no fear: while every business has different needs, you’ll be on the right path if you have your foundational features covered.

The right ecommerce platform should:

Top performing ecommerce platforms in this space include BigCommerce, Shopify and WooCommerce.

A SaaS ecommerce platform may be just what you need. Hosted in the cloud, these platforms are automatically updated and manage uptime for your brand.

8. Consider hiring a developer.

If you are managing a smaller inventory with a simple design, you may not need to invest in a developer.

However, if you are building a larger scale, more custom site, a developer can be a great asset to your team.

Having a professional resource to address specialized needs can save you time and help improve productivity.

9. Launch your jewelry ecommerce site.

Once you have your foundation set, it’s time to launch your jewelry ecommerce site and watch your business grow.

Be ready to respond to customer questions, fulfill orders in a timely manner, increase site traffic, and engage with your customer base on social media.

Before you celebrate, be sure to have an analytics tools in place from the moment you launch, so you can monitor your success from the start.

10. Create processes for dealing with online sales and customer service.

Worried about losing a human touch? Often times, your end user may not even realize they are speaking to a robot, thanks to humanistic advances in AI and machine learning.

This feature is also known to help increase conversion, eliminate the amount of abandoned carts, and can even boost your customers’ confidence in buying your products.

Your site is live and customers are now exploring your products. As they navigate through your online jewelry store, you need to be prepared to engage with them.

Make it easy for users to contact your company with product or order delivery questions.

Common contact methods include email and over-the-phone assistance. However, a tool that can save your business time and money is implementing a live chat feature, powered by artificial intelligence (AI).

11. Create a marketing plan to drive visitors and awareness.

This is an essential component of setting up your online jewelry website.

You’ll need to create a marketing plan that leverages your brand and consumer loyalty to attract new and returning users to your site. This plan should include both online and offline strategies.

A few examples include social, email, digital advertising, and event marketing.

Every marketing strategy should include performance tracking. Compile a list of key performance indicators (KPIs) that make the most sense for your business and track them in a tools like BigCommerce’s Ecommerce Insights and Google Analytics.

A few KPIs that are helpful to track when analyzing visitor traffic and awareness are:

Tips for Building Your Jewelry Brand’s Online Presence

Building an online presence is essential to the digital success of your jewelry brand.

The key is to draw on your brand’s authenticity and message to build consumer loyalty and drive site traffic and conversion.

1. Create a social media following.

Did you know that 95% of millennials are most likely to follow a brand on social media? Better yet, 75% of consumers say social media plays a vital role in their buying process.

2. Consider paid advertising.

Consumers are faced with many forms of content on digital platforms, so how will you stand out? An easy way to grab the attention of new customers is through paid advertising.

This could be using Instagram or Facebook Ads, boosted search results on Google, or partnering with other websites to sponsor content or run display ads.

Use analytics to determine your best paid advertising opportunity by understanding your customers’ interests and where they spend their time both online and offline.

3. Get email subscribers.

Email marketing is your key to lead generation.

First step: incentivize your users to opt-in to emails. It is key that you offer a benefit to your users that is difficult to pass up.

Many successful brands offer one-time discounts, anywhere up to 50% off or access to exclusive content. Study your customer base to understand what they value most.

Once you have a growing list of email subscribers, you will need to deliver high quality, personalized and relevant content.

Examples of this include weekly newsletters highlighting new promotions or using machine learning to provide personalized recommendations based off shopping behavior and site navigation activity.

4. Optimize your site for SEO and create a content marketing strategy.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is key to ranking above your competitors on search engines like Google.

Optimizing your site for SEO — pay close attention to quality and original product descriptions, URL building, product reviews, and using various forms of media on your product detail pages—just to name a few.

Content marketing will also improve your SEO while building customer trust and brand loyalty in return.

Create blog posts, social media, and various content mediums that are curated with the goal of bringing value to your customers and, in return, traffic to your online jewelry store.

5. Contribute to other sites.

Strategically partner with other sites to increase brand awareness, optimize SEO, and create more backlinks to your content.

If your business sells products on other retailers ecommerce websites, you may consider contributing as a guest blogger on their sites to spread brand awareness.

Other ways to contribute online include offering accessory styling advice on a fashion and apparel online store or blog, sharing jewelry industry trends on business or fashion magazine websites like Forbes or Vogue, or featuring products in proposal and wedding stories on sites like How They Asked and Style Me Pretty.

6. Work with influencers.

Prioritize creating relationships with influencers to promote your online jewelry store and brand name.

Depending on your budget and size of business, you may choose to work with micro-influencers or influencers with a larger following.

Regardless of following size, focus on engagement rate when selecting who you partner with to get the biggest bang for your buck.

Between collaborations, featured promotions, and shoppable posts, BigCommerce customer, Pink Lily Boutique, has doubled down on its influencer strategy.

With this tool, influencers can earn a commission on the items they share while Pink Lily gains targeted referral traffic. Everyone benefits, especially customers.

7. Utilize established customers for brand awareness.

Customers want to be a part of your brand story. They want to relate to your values and messaging, and understand that you have their interests at heart while developing your products.

Being in the jewelry business provides you with a great opportunity to connect with your customers on this very topic.

How do you succeed in this with authentic brand messaging? Connect and celebrate your customers’ special moments by using a brand-specific hashtag on social media platforms and then, with user consent, feature user generated content (UGC) on your website and other digital channels.

Examples of this include Diamond Direct’s #DDFamilyAlbum campaign on Instagram, promoting their diamond rings by featuring customer proposals to generate a sense of community.

Examples Of Trending Jewelry Niches

Another way to stand out in the crowd is taking part in a jewelry niche. Here are a few that may apply to your online jewelry business:

1. Affordable fashion jewelry.

Known for being every day, fashion forward pieces, affordable fashion jewelry is a well known niche.

Pieces range from necklaces to bracelets to earrings and come in many variations of color and size.

It’s common to see both trendy and vintage jewelry pieces sold here, as this niche caters to many styles. Affordable fashion jewelry brands include Dogeared, Auvere, and Demdaco.

2. Body jewelry.

Body jewelry ranges from body piercings (e.g. nose rings and belly button piercings) to body chains.

Earrings tend to be a big player and come in all shapes, sizes, and colors. This niche is smaller, but growing in the industry.

3. Silver plated jewelry.

Silver plated jewelry is a cheaper alternative to sterling silver.

Many times, silver plated jewelry can be found in an affordable fashion jewelry niche catalog.

However, it takes a strategic content strategy to show the benefits of silver plated jewelry to customers who may be wary of quality.

4. Fair trade jewelry.

Hello handmade. Fair trade jewelry has a large amount of handmade pieces, usually sourcing sustainable materials.

Many brands in this space are tied to a charity or organization that holds significant meaning to the brand.

FAQs About Selling Jewelry Online

Here are some simple answers to frequently asked questions about selling jewelry online.

Conclusion

In summary, setting up an ecommerce website will greatly benefit your jewelry business from both a sales and brand awareness perspective.

With this question in mind, selecting the right ecommerce platform for your business will be simple.

Apply customer-centric thinking to your online branding strategy as well.

Curate original content that can be delivered easily to your users to drive their purchasing decisions and brand loyalty. Partner with other websites, organizations, and influencers to help expand your reach.

Your online jewelry store and branding strategy will always be evolving and taking new shape, but with the right tools you will stay on track for success.