Selling jewelry online is always a question of time or money. Do I have enough time to run my own shop or am I willing to give up a piece of my revenue to have someone else do it for me. Let's take a look at the online vendors I discussed in my earlier post and how they may fit into your marketing plan. I have divided the different venues into three categories.
The first category I call wholesale sites. Wholesale sites ask the jeweler to provide them with a wholesale price (usually 50% of retail), images and descriptions. The site then manages the sales process. The wholesaler advertises, runs the site, pays the cost of shipping, processes payments, and pays the artist a commission at some designated time. They have a stringent jury process and can therefore maintain quality on their site. Two examples of wholesale sites are Artful Home and Art Jewelry Online. I think Object Fetish falls into this category but I am not certain. If someone could give me a heads up I would greatly appreciate it.
The second category I call step up web sites. They maintain a juried site so there is some guarantee of quality but since the fees are significantly less than wholesalers you will have to do a lot of the work yourself. Soleyne and America Creates fall into this category. Soleyne charges an 8% commission and America Creates charges 25%. In both instances you have to upload images of your work, provide descriptions, list tags and input pricing. Both sites indicate that advertising is forthcoming. They are both relatively new.
The third category I call the "It's Your Shop" venue. Here there is no jury process and anyone can sign up to sell their work. This is the case where you definitely have to have time. You do everything from category 2 plus all of your own marketing and advertising. They usually cost little to nothing to list merchandise and then take a small fee once something sells. Some have said that these venues are primarily for less expensive work but I have seen some high end artists do well on these sites. The key is know your customer and market like crazy to that market segment. Etsy, Shop Handmade, iCraft, Artfire and 1000 markets fall into this category. Etsy is the largest vendor of the group.
I don't claim to be the all knowing writer so I hope folks chime in and give me their perspective on things.
Part 3 will discuss how to write a business plan or what I affectionately call, "Where do you want to go and what are you willing to do to get there?"
Earrings by Emanuela Aureli
