Jewelry Marketing: Should You Add a Necklace Restringing Service?

Necklace restringing is a little known profit center that seems to always be in demand. We offer this service at your bead store and receive a steady stream of customers who want their old necklaces restrung or redesigned. The interesting thing is that these same customers often end up requesting additional custom designs or will end up buying some of our ready made jewelry, making it a good means of jewelry marketing for us. It could be for you also!

You’re probably already familiar with the steps involved in necklace stringing if you make handmade jewelry for a living. If not, here’s an inexpensive book that will show you everything you need to know. Once you feel comfortable with the process of necklace stringing, you’ll want to decide upon price. I would charge around $20.00 to $30.00 per hour for your services. This is less than a person would pay at a jewelry store and should still allow you to be amply rewarded for your time. You’re also hoping that by providing this service, you’ll end up with some customer design orders and orders for your own jewelry designs.

Advertise your services via local bulletin boards in libraries, grocery stores, schools, churches etc. You can also network with bead stores and have them contract out their restringing jobs to you. Post a notice on your website and consider placing ads on large online classified sites such as Craig’s List and USA Free Ads. The online classified sites can be an excellent resource for jewelry marketing.

After completing a restringing job for a customer, give her a card that has a link to your handmade jewelry website along with a coupon for 15% off her first purchase. Let her know you do custom jewelry orders for any occasion and would love to work with her in the future. Give her some ideas as to how your services can be useful to her. For example, “I make beautiful beaded bracelets for young children. They make wonderful birthday gifts”. If you market to your restringing customer correctly, you should be able to turn her into a long term customer for your handmade jewelry. Plus, necklace restringing can provide you with a nice additional source of income. 

There are lots of ways to approach jewelry marketing! I’ll be putting up lots more unique ideas in the future. Stay tuned. J

Kristie