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1) Silver Tarnish Prevention Tips

2) What's New at Home Jewelry Business Success Tips - new articles!

3) Featured Article: Build a Successful Jewelry Business by Being Different

4) Neat Jewelry Related Website: Amy O'Connell Jewelry and Lapidary Art

Silver Tarnish Prevention Tips

Sterling silver reacts with sulfur compounds and chloride salts in the environment, resulting in tarnish - the dreaded brownish discoloration that's the bane of jewelry art.

You can provide your silver with an environment that prevents or retards tarnish. Use acid-free paper for your jewelry tags and earring cards, and enclose sterling silver findings and jewelry in sealed plastic bags, making sure there's no moisture trapped inside. You can place an anti-tarnish strip inside each bag, but it should not directly touch the silver. Change anti-tarnish strips every few months to prevent them from redepositing sulfur onto the silver.

It's better and easier to prevent tarnish than to remove it. Because sterling silver is soft, it should be cleaned carefully. Even the mildest abrasive silver polish or polishing cloth removes a tiny amount of silver with each polishing. A better bet is to use an ionic jewelry cleaner to gently bubble away the tarnish.

What's new at
Home Jewelry Business Success Tips

Since our last issue, we have a wonderful and extremely popular new jewelry business success story:

Heidi J. Hale
The newest in our Jewelry Business Success interview series. Heidi J. Hale of Heidi J. Hale Designs shares how she went from making jewelry as a hobby to wholesaling her work across the country and retailing it online - all in just two years.

We've got more excellent Jewelry Business Success stories coming soon.

And now for our latest great articles from our guest authors:

In response to readers' questions about her online jewelry store setup, returning guest author Heidi Batiste of Mia's Treasure returns with a second article:

Setting Up Shopping Cart Software for Your Online Jewelry Store
How to use Mal's free shopping cart software for your online jewelry store. In the sequel to her "Jewelry Website Building for Dummies," guest author Heidi Batiste guides you step by step through an easy setup.

And here's a fun tool from new guest author Maryann Humes of Mair Designer Accessories:

Design Jewelry on the Fly
Design jewelry anywhere with this fun bead jewelry design utility. Guest author Maryann Humes and her husband developed a web application for recording jewelry ideas anyplace you have computer access. Try it!

Would you like to become published author too? Submit a jewelry business article and enjoy knowing that your words are being read by several thousand people in the jewelry art community! You'll also receive a free permanent link to your website, plus a boost in your traffic. Our guest authors report a significant flow of traffic coming from their article links on Home Jewelry Business Success Tips!

Being different is an excellent way to build a loyal customer base and sell more jewelry. Here's an easy two-part strategy for building a successful jewelry business by being different:

1. Always have new jewelry styles on display.
   
2. Offer jewelry your customers won't find anywhere else.

Don't even worry about competing with jewelry from Walmart, Target, and overseas imports. The people who prefer that mass-produced, imported jewelry from the same discount stores are not the customers for you.

As a small handcrafted jewelry business, you have several advantages over the big stores, and you can build a very successful jewelry business by capitalizing on that.

*Your* best customers are the people who are seeking something different - they prefer jewelry that's high quality, unique and artistic. They want something they'll never find at Walmart, and they hope for an entirely different buying experience.

These customers don't want to wear or give the same things they see on everyone else. And when they discover how different you are from the discount stores, they will turn into your very loyal customers.

So it's a wise strategy to build your jewelry business on supplying these enlightened customers with something different.

Always Have New Jewelry Styles on Display

Would you keep visiting a store that always has exactly the same stuff available? Well, neither would your customers.

As a one-person business, you are perfectly positioned to introduce fresh new jewelry quickly and often. This gives you a major advantage over the big stores that have large jewelry lines that are pre-determined a year in advance.

It isn't hard for a jewelry artist to produce a regular stream of new pieces. Introducing one simple new element such as a new color, different length, or new findings can make a big impression on your customers. You might also mix metals, or add some chainwork or hammered work to your collection for a quick update.

Your most loyal customers have already purchased one of nearly everything you offer. What will they buy if you don't have new styles and pieces for them to add to their collections? So put one of your newest bracelets, pins, or rings in their hands and watch their eyes sparkle.

Offer Jewelry Your Customers Won't Find Anywhere Else

People will buy your jewelry if it's unique. If they know they won't find it anywhere else, they'll have a sense of urgency to buy it now while they have the chance.

How unique do you have to be? It's up to you. Uniqueness can be either large-scale or small-scale. It's whatever it takes to make customers feel a pleasing difference when they look at your work.

Examples of uniqueness might be unusual stone types or cuts; unusual materials; uncommon techniques; mixed media; or creative packaging that can't be found anywhere else.

To enhance the impression of your uniqueness, consider making your overall image different too. Your booth decor, displays, website, business cards, and graphic elements can all be designed uniquely.

Being different means constantly come up with new ideas so that no other jeweler can ever really offer what you do. If they copy you they'll just be showing imitations of what you sold last year, while you're offering a newer crop of innovative jewelry.

Yes, that can be challenging. But it's also fun, and it's a great way to grow as an artist!

You might also consider ways you can be refreshingly different in serving your customers.

Do you resize jewelry for people while they wait? Do you personally deliver in-town purchases? Are you known for including a neat little freebie with each purchase? Walmart can't offer any of these things.

It's a good idea to continue to offer your profitable "bread and butter" items that always sell well, but it's also important to be known for always having something new. Customers will make a point of coming to see your latest if they can count on you to be unique.

And handcrafted jewelry, like the person who creates it, is expected to be different - beautifully unique!

Neat Jewelry Related Website

Our neat site this time is Amy O'Connell Jewelry and Lapidary Art. Amy's designs are unique and breathtaking - enjoy her unusual stones and settings! The photography in her website is also exquisite, and worth studying for how the pictures are composed and cropped. And in line with this month's article on building a successful jewelry business by being different, Amy's Sold Gallery is proof that customers appreciate uniqueness.

Find Specific Jewelry Business Info

Looking for specific jewelry business information or the answer to a question? Try our "Search This Site" feature to scour Home Jewelry Business Success Tips for any keywords you enter. A link to Search This Site is available from the bottom of the navigation bar at the left side of every page.

We have well over 150 articles now, plus lots more coming up - and sometimes knowing where to find specific information among so many articles can be tricky. But now you should be able to search easily and find what you're seeking.

If your search doesn't turn up any results for our site, then you've discovered a topic we need to add - please let me know the info or tips that are missing from our site.