A Unique Way to Market Your Handmade Jewelry to  Boutique Stores

Most people enter the handmade jewelry business because they enjoy the creative aspects of jewelry design and construction. Unfortunately, along with the fun and creativity of jewelry design becomes the task of having to market your jewelry creations which can be challenging and can also take up a lot of your studio time. If you're looking for a way to sell your handmade jewelry that requires you to spend less time marketing and more time designing and making jewelry, you may want to consider this idea.

There are many fashion boutiques who would love to have their own private label line of jewelry to meet the needs of their particular store. Many of these fashion retailers find it challenging to find jewelry that coordinates well with the particular fashion lines they carry. Why not approach several of these stores and see if they would be interested in having you design a special line of jewelry just for their store? You could offer them the option of placing their own name on the jewelry line you create for them so they have a line that's distinctly their own.

The advantages to this way of selling your jewelry are:

1. You can spend less time marketing and branding and work more "behind the scenes".

2. If you find several stores who want your services, you may be able to give up craft shows and direct sales.

3. You will probably have more business than you can handle providing private label jewelry for several stores.

4. You don't have to create glossy brochures, literature, and jewelry cards since the store will do all of the marketing and display for you.

The disadvantages of this way of selling your jewelry include:

1. You're not building a brand for yourself that could be beneficial to you if your jewelry line really takes off.

2. You're not able to leverage your business by building a mailing list of customers and reselling to them in the future.

3. You relinquish some of your creative freedom by designing what the store wants to sell rather than what you want to design.

4. Since you'll be selling your pieces at a wholesale price to the store, you'll make less than if you sold them directly through jewelry parties and shows.

If you're interested in pursuing this idea, make an appointment with boutique store owners in your area to show some samples of your jewelry designs. Let them know that you can provide them with an exclusive line of jewelry that they can brand with their store name and you can do specific jewelry designs that will enhance the fashions they currently carry. Try to get a feel for where the gaps are in their jewelry offerings. Do they have requests for particular jewelry designs they're unable to locate through their conventional sources? Even if you don't end up doing a private label line for them, this kind of information is invaluable to you as a jewelry designer.

If the boutique owner seems interested in your proposal, you can schedule a second meeting to discuss what type of jewelry designs you could create that might meet her needs. At that meeting you could bring more samples of your work to give her some ideas of the designs you could create for her store. Once you have an idea of what she's looking for, you can create a few samples for her approval and continue to further build the line.

This could potentially turn into a long term, lucrative relationship if done properly. If you decide to work with several stores in your area, make sure the line you create for each store is unique in order to prevent competition between the diffferent stores.

If you're looking for an alternative to shows and home parties, this type of business may be a nice alternative for you.

Would you like to be able to price your jewelry with the click of a button plus keep track of all of your jewelry supplies and know EXACTLY what you have in stock at any time? There's an incredibly useful and user friendly software out there that can help you do just that. No more guessing on pricing or inventory. I'll let you read about it for yourself by clicking here. I have this software and don't know how I would live without it now. Take a look. :-)

Thanks for reading,

Kristie