Tips for Selling your Handmade Jewelry: Part 1 – Getting Ready to Sell

Do you love making jewelry and want to earn some extra money, or maybe even start a new career? Selling your handmade jewelry is a great opportunity to combine a passion with a profession. Even before becoming a designer with Beadaholique, I was selling my handmade wares to shops, at fairs, and online. I have done everything from big wholesale shows to little farmers markets, and along the way I have definitely learned a thing or two about selling handmade goods.
I am splitting this article into a 2 part blog series so that it will be easier to digest. This first part is going to discuss preparing to sell your handmade goods and the second part will talk about actually selling them. Feel free to share your own tips by leaving comments on these blog posts.

My #1, beat-all-other-tips advice is to make what you love. This may sound like a no-brainer but it’s an important first step. If you plan on investing time and money into a new venture, you should enjoy doing it. People can also tell when a piece is made because you really enjoyed it or because you thought it would be a quick sell. Trends come and go, so to have a lasting business you want to make sure you put your own personal stamp on your designs, don’t try to look like everyone else, offer something unique and distinctive. I tried making some pieces that I thought would be popular and then I made some that I just really loved and were “me” – guess which ones sold? Now this is not to say that you should not be aware of trends and popular colors, but don’t just copy what is already on the market.

Hone your skills. Your artistry and craftsmanship is what is going to sell your pieces, so practice, practice, practice! You will want to make sure your wrapped wire loops are neat and uniform, your crimp beads are secure (imagine a customer picking up a necklace and all the beads falling off – yikes!), and your beadwork is tidy. Beadaholique has almost 500 free instructional videos to teach you everything you need to know about jewelry making. Once you’ve got your skills down, think about adding finishing touches to your jewelry that will say “I am a professional” such as crimp bead covers, wire protectors, and jewelry tags.

Think about packaging. People LOVE items that come prettily packaged and it can be a good selling point for your jewelry. You can do something very simple like a drawstring bag or even just a paper bag with a pretty design on it or you can be a bit more elaborate like a box with a bow, maybe even with a custom sticker put on top. My jewelry has a distinct vintage, Steampunk feel to it so I always package the pieces in brown craft boxes tied with a linen bee-print bow. I then slip the box into a sepia toned bag. Try to make your packaging match your designs.

Print up some business cards and make a blog. You can do both of these things for relatively little expense and from home. Basically, you want to make sure that a customer who bought your jewelry as a gift for her sister can find you when she wants to buy a gift for her best friend – repeat business! If you feel fancy, go ahead and make a website, although I don’t think this is necessary when you are first starting out. If you want to have an online selling presence, you can list your items on Etsy, Big Cartel, Storenvy, Goodsmiths, and DaWanda to name a few, and then provide links to these places on your blog.

Price your goods. At this point you will want to start thinking about how much to charge for your jewelry. Consider how much you spent on the supplies and how much time it took you to make the piece. Make sure to “pay” yourself a fair wage and don’t give away your time. I set a dollar amount that I want to make each hour for my labor and then do the math to figure out how much the labor cost is for a piece that takes say 30 minutes or 4 hours. I then add my labor charges to my cost of supplies and bump the price up a little more to account for things like packaging, promotion, etc. Once you know what you want to charge, compare that number to what other people are charging to see if it is within reason. Look online, in stores, and at craft fairs for similar goods and see if you are within the ballpark. A cautionary word about looking at online marketplaces for prices – some people on these sites are selling WAY under what they should be, such as a hand knit scarf for $5. Don’t be discouraged by this and also don’t try to compete with these prices if you are really trying to make a business out of it. Take it with a grain of salt and look at what the majority of people are selling similar items for. If your prices are within a “normal” range, then go onto the next step. If not, reconsider what you are charging for labor, we would all like to make $50+ an hour, but that is not really realistic when you first are starting out.

I hope these tips helped, check back tomorrow when I will touch briefly on deciding whether to sell wholesale or retail and provide tips on selling both online and in-person.  Update: Part 2 is now up!

- Julie