How to open an online store jewelry from scratch

We understand that opening an online jewelry store is not an easy task, given the need to initially invest money exclusively in technical issues, paying for the services of programmers, designers, copywriters, content managers, etc. But you must admit that the game is worth the candle, because such a solution will attract a lot more audience , even if you had an excellent office in the city center. Only if your business is represented on the Internet can you expect high income in the future.

Over the years of the company's existence, we have created many online stores, including jewelry, so we know which moments are key for the visitor. In this article, we will try to reveal the secrets that will help not only to open an online store with minimal costs, but also to make it so that it starts making the first profit in the shortest possible time.

Pros and cons of creating an online jewelry store

Bijouterie is popular products that are in demand not only among women, but also belong to an important attribute of the modern subculture. Exclusive "chips" and decorations, able to emphasize the style of young people. Another important feature of business is an increase in demand due to the fact that in recent years there has been a slight decrease in the level of income of citizens. As a result, our compatriots more often go shopping in a jewelry store than in a jewelry store.

For example, in 2018, more than 80% of all jewelry sold in Ukraine was made of silver. This is because the metal is cheaper when compared to gold or platinum. The most popular jewelry was inexpensive rings, not pendants and bracelets.

At the same time, 2019 saw an increase in the value of silver jewelry as the number of assaying and branding of precious metal items increased. This trend leads to the fact that the jewelry market, according to various estimates, is growing by 30-40% per year. Based on this, there are more than enough economic reasons to open an online jewelry store .

If we talk about practical benefits, then in particular it is worth noting the following advantages of opening:

• Sales process automation.
• Providing a more complete report to the client about the availability of products.
• Easier tracking of product availability.
• Increasing customer loyalty through marketing moves.
• The ability to systematically manage the entire business.

At the same time, before opening, you should familiarize yourself with all the pros and cons of this solution. First of all, the positive aspects include the minimum costs, and in particular the start-up capital. On average, it takes $ 150-250 to start a jewelry business.

Also, jewelry is a small-sized product, for storage of which you do not need a lot of space. This feature will allow you to save on renting a warehouse . Plus, shipping the jewelry won't be costly.

If we talk about the disadvantages of opening an online jewelry store, then the main thing will be a lot of competition, which exists due to the huge demand for products. At the same time, you can buy such jewelry not only through the Internet, but even in an ordinary shopping center, stationary jewelry store, or simply on the street. But you should not be afraid of competition either, because with a competent approach, you can organize all business processes in your favor, having achieved high results. It is these secrets that will be discussed further.

What to do before creating an online jewelry store

As before starting any business of your own , an entrepreneur needs to do some preparatory work before starting his own online project to sell jewelry. In this case, we are talking about the following points:

• Analyze the market. If we talk about the market in the country, then these statistics can be available in the form of graphs that are posted on many sites. But since delivery can be carried out not only through postal services, but also on our own, it is necessary to conduct an analysis of competing companies in your region.
• Decide on the assortment. Jewelry is popular among both women and girls, therefore, the list of available goods must include such jewelry as necklaces, pendants, beads, earrings (in different stylistic designs), bracelets, rings, gloves, scarves, hats, brooches, glasses, decorative elastic bands and hairpins.
• Choose a reliable supplier . This point is extremely important, since the stability of the online store will depend on the confidence in it. As a rule, there are several options: creating jewelry on your own, hiring freelancers in the field of hand-made, buying ready-made jewelry in other markets.
• Get to know your target audience. “ You need to know the client by sight” - this is how one of the main rules of working on the Internet can be interpreted. To provide services with maximum conversion, you need to find out as much as possible about your customer: gender, age, preferences. For example, jewelry can be popular among girls of a certain age, or fans of one of the trends in the fashion world. To compose a portrait of a buyer, you need to focus on the following indicators:

- gender:

- age;

- income;

-interests.

Following this scheme, you can, for example, get the following result - a woman of 35-40 years old with an average income and interests in the field of hand-made and jewelry.

• Register individual entrepreneurship. No matter how much you want to save on this point, it is highly discouraged to do so, since the fines for illegal business activities are much higher than the expected savings. Moreover, on average, it will be enough to set aside a couple of days to register with government agencies.

Creation of a website for the sale of jewelry

If all of the above points are completed, you can proceed to the direct process of creating a site. At this stage, the choice will be between several popular options for creating a web resource:

• CMS. Due to the large number of available website engines, you can choose the one that best suits the requirements of your online store. OkayCMS is notable in this respect.
• Site on the aggregator. Aggregators of sites or web constructors such as Wix, Site123, etc. are very popular. The ease of working with them increases the demand for this type of service. However, if we compare the capabilities of a site on an aggregator and on a CMS, then the latter option has much more capabilities, in particular: convenient content editing, integration with SEO tools, the ability to link all accounting to the site, etc.
• Individual design. The most expensive way to create a website, but at the same time it is the most authoritative, since you will not find more sites similar to yours on the Internet. The popular OkayCMS platform has the opportunity to use its exclusive design, thereby increasing the site's recognition, an online store on OkayCMS is one of the best business solutions.
• Ready template. If you are creating a website on a popular engine, then, as a rule, you can find a large number of ready-made templates on the Internet that are applicable to an online store.

Here are the key parameters to look out for when choosing a CMS:

• Convenience of unloading the catalog of goods.
• Availability of ready-made design templates.
• Placing an order and making a payment.
• Opportunities for search engine optimization.
• Integration with analytics systems.

What should be the functionality of the site

The efficiency of the entire business depends on how well the most key functions of the online jewelry store are implemented in the platform. Of course, there is no definite answer to this question, since it can only be found if you already know your audience, but still there is a certain list that will be universal.

• Product search . Perhaps the most important tool that should be present on the site. For a quick order, it is necessary to provide the visitor with the opportunity to find what he is looking for as easy as possible. This requires the presence of such functionalities: search string, filter and sorting.
• Convenient shopping cart. It is at the stage of forming an order that a large number of potential customers leave the online store, so it is necessary to make this page concise and without unnecessary mandatory fields.
• Order notification . The tool is necessary for the site visitor to be sure that his order has been accepted and is being processed.
• Responsive template. Since the number of users of mobile devices is growing from year to year, it is not surprising that orders are often carried out from them. Only the presence of a convenient mobile version of the site will increase the conversion of visitors who want to make a purchase.
• The presence of filters. As mentioned above, thanks to this tool, the client can find the product that he is looking for in a large assortment. This reduces his search time and leads to ordering faster.
• Various SEO tools. To bring your site to the top of the search results, you need to have all the necessary features at hand, such as the automatic generation of unique URLs, Title, Description and Keywords meta tags.

The best example of realizing all these advantages will be the online jewelry store " Matrice-Jewelery ", which is implemented on the OkayCMS platform. The site has a simple and understandable structure, convenient search and functional filter, and you can always see a demo online store.

Checkout takes just a few clicks, and the form contains only the fields you really need, which also increases conversion rates.

The online store "Vipgold " will be no less indicative. The multilingual site allows for sales to a wider range of consumers.

In addition, it is worth noting such a useful functionality as an online watch assessment. To use this service, you must attach a photo of the clock mechanism in the order form. This function can also be used for an online jewelry store, for example, a client can send a photo of jewelry for the purpose of making a similar product, if the store uses the labor of hand-made masters.

This additional function is designed to significantly save the client's time during any actions with an expensive accessory (sale, exchange, appraisal), since he can find out the preliminary cost of the watch without even leaving his own home.

Registration of product cards

Various guides for creating a product card describe many important elements of this page of your online store, their correct location, the need for A / B testing, the importance of image quality, etc. That's just nowhere to find a clear formulation of what exactly must be present in the card without fail.

To begin with, it is worth giving a definition of what a product card is. The simplest will be the interpretation, according to which the card is called a detailed description of the product with the presence of functional elements (buttons "Buy" or "Add to cart").

A well-designed page should perform several functions:

• Focus the attention of the site visitor.
• Engage in a purchase.
• Confirm the motivation of a potential buyer.
• To induce confidence in the justification of the choice.
•   Make the desired action as simple as possible.

Well-known marketer Brian Eisenberg argues that the main question that a website visitor who plans to make a purchase asks himself is: "What is the benefit for me personally?"

Based on this, when registering a product card, you need to follow several rules:

Correct sequence. According to the research of Jacob Nielsen, the user does not look for specific information on the page, but simply examines the page and his gaze moves along a trajectory that resembles the letter "F". Knowing this, it is worth placing content according to the “ eye tracking ” rule.

Confirmation of the need to purchase. To help the client make a choice, it is worth posting as much useful information as possible: pictures, videos, guarantees, reviews, etc.

Bread crumbs. An option that will allow the client to quickly go back a few steps, as well as understand exactly where he is on the site.

Product name . According to “eye tracking” technology, the user starts viewing the page from the upper left corner, so this particular place will be the most suitable for the location of the title.

High-quality picture. “It's better to see once than hear a hundred times” - this proverb should be taken into account when creating a product card. Use pictures with good resolution, so you will build more confidence. An effective move would be to add more options for images, where you show the final product, in this case, a decoration on a person, because this way a potential client will be able to evaluate how the product will look on it.

Useful tips for website optimization

Website optimization is a stage that includes many factors, but the key is to create a high-quality quote. It is no coincidence that Americans even have such an expression “content is the king” , which in Russian sounds like “content is the king”. In fact, filling a site with useful and, most importantly, high-quality content can significantly increase relevant traffic. To do this, it is better to use the services of an experienced copywriter, who, moreover, must perfectly know the intricacies of the business. It would be ideal to find an author of articles, whose resume displays experience with the subject of jewelry.

There is one secret of updating you need to do constantly. Only when followers see your posts in their news feed from day to day, you can count on their activity.

Of course, you can't do without SEO. You need to be extremely careful with this tool, because if you buy a large number of low-quality links, then a young site can easily fall under the filters of search engines. The safest is to promote keywords and meta tags. In order for this process to be systematized, it is recommended to develop an action plan at the stage of compiling the semantic core.

As a rule, attracting a user to a site is not as difficult as keeping him there. To a large extent, the amount of useful time a guest spends on a site depends on usability. To increase this indicator, we recommend that you devote proper time to design, as well as reduce the speed of page loading.

It will also be justified to create a blog in which you can post useful information about jewelry, as well as increase traffic to certain pages of the site using the linking method. The same applies to such an effective tool as stocks and company news. The promotional price always arouses particular interest in the visitor, so it is advisable to use color markers and icons to attract attention. In the news section, visitors can be informed about both new products in the company's activities and, for example, about the expansion of the range of manufacturers.

What to do after opening an online store

If you received answers to the question of how to open your online jewelry store , then it is extremely important to understand that further it is worth solving a few more important points, namely its promotion. From the moment the site becomes available in the search, painstaking work begins on bringing it to the top of the search results so that more people find jewelry. At this stage, you should use all possible methods, from SEO to advertising . If we talk about the latter, at the moment there are several of the most effective types of advertising campaigns:

• contextual;
• advertising in social networks.

Contextual advertising means text ads that will be shown to users if these requests have been added to an advertising campaign. There are two types of contextual advertising :

1. Search engine. The ad is shown in the search results of the largest search engines (Google, Yandex, Rambler) or directly on the site (vertical search). The latter option is ideal for specialized sites where you have to search for products in different categories.
2. Thematic. The ad is displayed on the pages of sites that are part of the affiliate network of ad systems. In this case, the information will be shown as additional, even if the user did not enter a key request.

When ordering contextual advertising, you pay, in fact, for the action that is as close as possible to a purchase, because the most popular type is CPC (Cost Per Click) - payment for clicking on a posted ad. Thus, payment is made for a potential buyer, and not just for showing an ad. Also among the advantages can be called and the auction method of pricing, which implies that the advertiser independently determines the cost per click. As a result, the most expensive ads will be shown to the user first. An important point is the possibility of targeting. That is, you can specify as accurately as possible the target audience to which the advertisement will be shown.

The most important plus of this type of promotion is the quick return on the invested money. Unlike search engine optimization, here you can see the result immediately - calls, orders, emails. However, for this to work, you need a professional approach to setting up contextual advertising.

If we talk about advertising on social networks, then this is a relatively new way of promotion, which today, nevertheless, is very effective. First of all, this method of promotion attracts the opportunity to segment the target audience (gender, age, profession, place of residence, etc.). Thanks to this, the advertising budget is used more rationally. In addition, the price of such services looks very attractive. Among the shortcomings, one can name the difficulty of choosing a suitable site, as well as determining its authority, since quite often the number of followers is not an indicator of their activity due to the presence of special ways to increase their number.