1. Guide to Selling More Jewelry

2. Recommended Reading:
   Lorri Ely's "Jewelry Making 101"

3. What's New at Home Jewelry Business Success Tips:
   Four great new articles

4. Submit Your Article, Project, Tip, or Photo -
   and Get a Valuable Link to Your Website

5. Update:
   A New Way to Sell Your Handcrafted Jewelry -
   Coming Soon!

6. Featured Article:
   Wholesale and Consignment Pricing - How Can You Make a Fair Profit?

7. Neat Jewelry-Related Website:
   Queenthings - The Secret Garden

Sell more jewelry this year with the secrets you'll learn in my downloadable ebook, Ultimate Guide to Your Profitable Jewelry Booth.

Don't wait to discover hundreds of things you can do to sell your jewelry like crazy at shows, fairs, and festivals. Invest in this 176-page, step-by-step resource before your next show:

Lorri Ely has a fantastic 121-page Jewelry Making 101 guide that you can download and start reading right away.

This well-written and generously illustrated ebook covers jewelry making tools, supplies, and components, design strategies, common jewelry lengths, crimping, basic wire-wrapping, finishing cord jewelry, using bead cones, adding extender chains, wrapping briolettes, and much more.

The abundance of clear, step-by-step photos make this an excellent reference manual, and a good addition to your personal jewelry library.

Best of all, it's a steal at only $9.97!

1. New Designs for Your Line of Jewelry
   A jewelry artist shares her method of testing and refining new designs for her line of jewelry. Variety is the spice of life that makes her customers return! By Cindy Cherrington of CC Creations.




2. Finding New Customers
   Try Liza Schmitt's strategies for finding new jewelry customers via referrals, testimonials, marketing, and advertising. By Liza Schmitt of Craft Business Home.




3. Jewelry Lighting
   Tips for lighting your jewelry for better photos - including cheap ways to improvise lighting, plus ideal indoor and outdoor lighting setups. By Ahna White of www.Ahna.Etsy.com and Art Created by Ahna.




4. Reaching Success in Jewelry Making
   Grab a cup of coffee and savor this insightful article on the spiritual path to jewelry business success. By Carolina González of NeoVamp Jewelry.

Share your own jewelry business story, tip, project, or advice - and build traffic to your website at the same time. You can also include any photos you have that illustrate your contribution.

Submit a jewelry business article

Submit a jewelry business or jewelry making tip

Submit a jewelry display or jewelry packaging tip, photo, or project

When I publish your contribution, you'll receive a free permanent link to your website from either Home Jewelry Business Success Tips or Jewelry Display Ideas - and your content will be read by thousands of people in the jewelry industry. My guest authors report a significant flow of traffic coming from their links on Home Jewelry Business Success Tips and Jewelry Display Ideas!

I'm currently working on an all-new ebook, which details a very profitable new way to market your jewelry to customers who are VERY willing and able to buy from you.

More details coming soon, as my new ebook gets closer to being finalized!

A reader named Karen wrote in a few days ago with two questions about selling jewelry wholesale and on consignment - and whether the artist receives a fair cut of the profit.

Here are her questions, and my answers:

Karen: I read that selling directly to shop is better than consigning. But in that case, once you sell to the shop, they can jack the price up as high as they want and if it sells, you won't be in on their profit. Doesn't it keep the shop owner a little more honest with pricing if you are getting a direct cut off of every sale instead? And if you were to sell directly to the shop, what percentage mark-up would you sell to them for?

Rena: When selling wholesale to shops, you typically give the shop a 40 to 50% discount off your retail prices. (Usually it's 50%, but in case of a small order, the shop might not merit 50% off. For example, if they wanted 6 pairs of earrings instead of a dozen. You should set minimum wholesale order qualifications - either based on quantity, or on order dollar-amount.)

It's important to price your items according to what the retail market will bear. If you do that correctly, the shop won't want to jack up the prices because they'll be raising them beyond what customers would be willing to pay.

So the best safeguard here is to do your homework when setting the retail prices for your work to begin with, and then ensuring that your wholesale pricing (whether at a 40% or 50% discount from your retail pricing) still affords you a worthwhile profit AFTER your expenses (supplies, overhead, time) are subtracted.

I have a series of articles on pricing jewelry, to help you really get on track with pricing your work accurately. The success or failure of a jewelry business often hinges on how the artist prices his or her work.

Karen: In a consignment when the split is 60/40, is your 60% after materials or total? Because if it's total, once you pay back materials, the shop makes more money than you do. Is that normal?

Rena: The consignment is 60/40 of the *retail* price. (Sometimes the split can be 70/30, 50/50, or some other percentage.) Again, if you've done a good job setting your retail pricing, you won't feel ripped off with receiving 60% of the retail price.

As for the shop, they have to subtract their expenses - building rent, utilities, employee salaries, advertising, maintenance, income tax, etc. from the 40% they receive! So they're not taking their whole chunk to the bank either.

If you're considering consigning or wholesaling your jewelry, see my article series on jewelry wholesaling/consignment.

I hope this helps, Karen - and best of luck with your jewelry business!

Queenthings - The Secret Garden is a neat website because of its unusual, storybook-style layout.

However, it's unfortunately also a very slow-loading website, so you may need some patience to view very much of it. But if you have the time, you will be rewarded with a dreamy visit to a most enchanting jewelry-related realm!

Looking for specific jewelry business information or the answer to a question? Try my "Search This Site" feature to scour Home Jewelry Business Success Tips for any keywords you enter.

I have over 370 articles on Home Jewelry Business Success Tips now, and new posts several days a week in the Jewelry Business Blog - plus lots more coming up - and sometimes knowing where to find specific information among so many articles can be tricky. But now you can search easily and find what you're seeking.

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