How to Transform Your Hobby of Jewelry Designing Into a Successful Business

The most successful business happens when you enjoy doing it. In this case, you can build a thriving jewellery business out of your hobby of designing or collecting jewels. It could be of any type and category. To make it an impressive business, you need dedication, proper planning, and an understanding about methods of jewellery making, ingredients, types, etc. It’s necessary to know all details of the jewellery industry in order to excel as a businessperson.

Jewelry can serve as a marker of social status or personal status, such as a wedding ring, an artistic display, and as a carrier or symbol of personal meaning – such as love, mourning, a personal milestone, or even luck. A jewelry designer creates designs for mass production, or for pieces to be made individually or in small numbers by them or other craft workers. It might seem impossible to become a jewelry designer or start a jewelry business without years of training and outstanding art skills, but this is far from the truth.

Starting a jewelry making business comes with its own set of considerations and complications. It’s a saturated market but still has space for newcomers. A good number of men and women are currently making millions running jewelry businesses. Beauty products have strong demand, especially for women, since they often have a desire and eye for appearing presentable and classy. This is where finely designed jewelries come in handy. A person who does this likely considers his or herself to be a jewelry designer first, and an entrepreneur second. However, learning how to start a jewelry business is not as difficult as you may fear; it’s mostly a matter of time, effort, and perseverance. We’ve broken down the process into essential steps for turning your hobby into a jewelry business.

Prepare a Business Plan

Before you get into the nuts and bolts of creating your jewelry and starting your business, you need to get clear about what, exactly, your jewelry business is. The best way to do this is by writing a business plan.

In your business plan, start by answering at least the following questions:

Are you selling fine jewelry or trendy pieces?
Are your pieces handmade or outsourced to a premium manufacturer?
Will you operate from home, or will you need to rent an office space?
Are you going it alone, or do you need to hire staff — either now or in the near future?
How will you price your products?
Who is your target audience?
How do you plan on marketing your business?
Where will you sell your products?

Business Budget

How much cash you will need to get yourself off the ground?

Alongside your business plan, you should be sketching out a business budget. First, make a detailed list of your preliminary startup costs, such as tools and equipment, marketing material, licenses, permits, educational courses, office or coworking space, wages for any staff you may be hiring, and your expected daily, or overhead, expenses. Then, note how much cash you have available and how much additional funding (if any) you’ll need to launch and operate over the next few months. Also, know that there are tons of small-business budget templates available if you need more guidance. Learn from existing businesses.

Market Research

During this pre-launch phase, it’s a good idea to do a bit of market research. Take a look at other, successful jewelry businesses that you admire and would like to emulate in some way:

Why is it successful?
Who is their audience?
What are their marketing tactics?
How and where do they sell their goods?
Do they rely solely on their website or on other selling platforms (like Etsy or Amazon)?
Do they also sell in brick-and-mortar shops?

Market research is also critical in determining how to price your jewelry appropriately for your audience.

Legalize your business

Next, you’ll need to cover all legal bases to ensure you’re running your jewelry business properly. First, if you plan on running your business from your home, check with your local clerk’s office about licensing and permit requirements for home businesses. Once you’ve created your business name, you’ll next decide on a business entity and register your business accordingly with your local business registration office.

Insure Your Business

At this point, you may also consider taking out business insurance to further protect yourself. Start by looking into product liability insurance, which protects businesses from legal fallout in case their product causes injury to a customer or another third party, and general liability insurance, which protects businesses against a slew of common legal claims. If you hire employees, you’ll need to investigate other types of insurance like workers’ compensation, unemployment, and state disability insurance.

Register Trademark

Finally, you might want to register a trademark for your business name, logo, or designs through your local patent and trademark office, which you can easily do online these days.

Find suppliers and create your jewelry

Now that you’ve laid the proper legal and financial foundations for your business, you can start creating your jewelry with attention toward selling. If you haven’t already, you’ll need to purchase wholesale jewelry-making tools and equipment. If you’re not wanting to invest big into your business at the beginning, look to outsource jewelry manufacturing, a much easier and more accessible strategy for new startups. It can be useful to ask other jewelry designers about trustworthy manufacturers; otherwise, put in a little work yourself and research, research, research.

Sell your jewelry

Once you’ve built up a solid inventory, you’ll need to find somewhere to sell it. Most likely, your primary sales channel will be through an online store. Consider building your store through a service like Shopify, which makes it easy for entrepreneurs to create and manage their e-commerce stores. These services are often loaded with useful features, like custom sales reports and analytics, customer relationship management tools, and built-in marketing tools. Either before or as you sell your goods on a dedicated online store, you can sell your products on e-commerce platforms like Amazon, Etsy, or eBay. These platforms are especially valuable for new entrepreneurs, as millions of customers are scouring these sites every day for products like yours — so leverage them for their built-in traffic. These sites can also be useful testing grounds to see which of your products sell over others, and at which price points.

Don’t neglect selling your jewelry to friends and family, and let your brand grow via word of mouth. You can also become a vendor at flea markets and crafts fairs, or approach local retailers and ask if you can host a pop-up shop or sell your jewelry on consignment in their stores. Make sure you create business cards, which include links to your online store and social media channels.

Keep Going

Starting a business is a time-consuming task, even if it’s just a side hustle. If you’re serious about your venture, make it a priority to carve out enough time in your schedule to dedicate toward launching and managing your business, even if that’s just an hour at the end of the day to work on a piece of jewelry, create a few social media posts, or check up on your sales reports or marketing performance. The only businesses who succeed are those who are consistent.

At Lao Pride Inc, we take care of the most difficult aspects of the fine jewelry business, so that you can focus on marketing and gaining new customers. We obtain diamonds from reputable sources that follow international mining laws and even provide lab-grown diamonds if desired. Simply tell us your design idea, and we do the rest – hand sketch design, computer rendering, casting, mounting, laser inscription, and everything in between. We even do actual product photography for you to use in your marketing. Furthermore, our on-time worldwide delivery and responsible after-sales service will provide you with the support you need to establish a flourishing jewelry business.