How To Start A Jewelry Business

This is the most important question any small business owner can ask. What are you going to sell?

Do you make earrings out of wire-wrapped crystals? Air dry clay? Is there a wholesaler you’ve fallen in love with and want to share their pieces with the world? Or will you sell a combination of the two?

Whatever you decide to do, do it because you are passionate about it, and it will make your experience as a new small business owner more enjoyable and successful.

Who are you? What makes your jewelry/business unique?

This can be as simple as choosing a name that means something special to you, making a beloved animal or family symbol your trademark icon, or even just deciding what colors you’re going to use in your advertisements.

Pick something that is authentic as that will draw more customers in 2023 than a cookie-cutter “minimalist” brand would have before the 2020 COVID shutdown. Customers want to purchase from a real person when they shop small.

If you’re planning on making your own jewelry, you’ll need to find a consistent source of materials. Price and quality are crucial not just for your own sustainability as a business but also for customer loyalty.

An example of this is a customer taking a chance on a new small business, purchasing a piece of jewelry from you, and it being great quality, reasonably priced, and a piece they can wear for years to come. They tell their friends and family and end up purchasing another piece from you. Unfortunately, in the time between their first and second purchase, the quality of materials from your main supplier has dropped dramatically. The second piece this customer purchases is poorer quality, breaks easily, and makes them tell everyone they had previously sung your praises to avoid your shop. Cheap is not always the best.

You want to profit, of course, but you can’t sell a subpar product for a higher price and expect to gain and keep a loyal customer base.

That being said, being expensive is also not always the best, either. Do your research, test materials, and find a good balance of price and quality that benefits both your profit margin and your customers.

This is entirely up to you. Running a small business out of your living room is far from unheard of, but if you find yourself needing a bit more space, a studio can be a good idea. Studio space can be used for creating, packaging, and shipping your jewelry pieces.

Having a designated workspace outside of your home is a good way to keep your personal and business life separate. You can have all materials shipped to your studio and use that address when shipping to avoid having to get a P.O. Box or use your home address.

Location, location, location! Even in this age of the internet, you have to consider the “location” of your digital storefront. We’ll go over omnichannel platforms a little later on in this article, but it’s important to think about not just the design of your online store, but the user experience and payment processor as well.

You can also sell your jewelry through already-established online sellers like Etsy. Check out our articles on finding the best place to sell your jewelry, if Etsy is the right option, and how you can get started with selling on Etsy.

Along with selling online, if you don’t want to commit to a physical storefront full-time, you might consider selling at your local farmers market. To take advantage of your temporary storefront, you can add other products to your offerings and diversify your customer base.

Finally, if you want to open your very own brick-and-mortar jewelry store, you have a long journey ahead of you, but it is one that’s often worth the hard work! Look into commercial real estate loans if you dream of a physical storefront of your own.

Social media is a cheap and easy way to establish your jewelry business’ online presence, advertise to potential customers, and start defining your brand. Email marketing can be easy and fruitful if you already have a large personal network. You can start an e-newsletter that customers can subscribe to using software like Constant Contact or Mailchimp to design your emails and maintain your subscriber lists.

If you don’t have the savings or resources to start your business on your own, there are plenty of different funding options you can explore.

An easier (but riskier) way to fund your new business is using a business credit card. Going with this option will allow you to access credit quickly and won’t limit what you can spend it on. But be sure to keep in mind that credit cards charge high-interest rates on any balances you carry from month to month.

A personal loan is another option you can explore for funding. They’re relatively easy to get and require no previous business credit history. The problem with using a personal loan is that you won’t get the liability protection you would with a business loan.

Two other options that are fairly niche and may not apply to your business or your situation are government grants and Rollovers as Business Startups (ROBS). Grants are the closest thing a new small business can get to “free” money. A ROBS provider allows you, for a fee, to use money from your retirement account tax-free to pay for startup costs.

Check out our article on startup funding to see all of your options!

The most important software you’re going to need is payment processing software. After that, you can consider accounting software and even project management software to help keep yourself (and maybe your future employees) on track with your orders.

If you decide to operate your business as a sole proprietorship or partnership, you don’t need to do anything to register your jewelry business as it is seen as an extension of yourself. Taxes can be simpler this way as you file both your business and personal taxes together.

The cons of structuring your business this way is that you don’t have the same liability protection you would if you were to incorporate your business. You would be held personally liable for any debts your business takes on.

There’s a good chance that the website builder you choose to host your eCommerce site will have a built-in payment processor. That being said, it might not be one you like the terms of, or you might need software with more features.

You’ll need to make sure your payment processor can take credit and debit card payments at the very least. If you plan on selling in-person in any way, you’ll also need a card reader, whether that is a physical POS system or a QR code customers can scan that links to your payment processing software.

There are almost endless options for credit card processing software. Read more about our favorite providers and how to choose which one is best for your jewelry business in our article about the best payment processing companies for small businesses.

The cost of starting a jewelry business will vary based on what kind of jewelry you’re selling, how much inventory you want to start out with, and the state you’re going to be operating out of.

You can start a small jewelry business by deciding on your product, finding funding, acquiring necessary software, establishing your brand, registering your business, opening your physical or digital storefront, and marketing!

You can start selling jewelry from home by deciding on the kind of jewelry you want to sell, finding funding, acquiring necessary software, establishing your brand, registering your business, opening your digital storefront, and marketing!