Starting a Jewelry Store on the Internet

Starting a jewelry business and opening your own store online is much easier than it sounds. Thanks to the Internet, couriers that ship worldwide and easy ways of paying for goods online you can actually open your Internet store in less than a day without owning a single piece of jewelry in stock. All that is required in making your online jewelry store a success is marketing.

The first step is to locate reliable jewelry wholesale suppliers. They can be easily found all over the internet, you don't need to bother with purchasing commercial directories of wholesalers. For those who do not want to go through the trouble of buying and stocking their own jewelry, find a wholesale company that supports drop shipments. Using this method you will never have to get your hands dirty with buying and storing jewelry yourself, you merely set up a website and let the wholesale company do the rest. Customers who visit your site will place orders and you forward those orders to the wholesaler who will drop ship the items straight to the customer's address. You can make special deals with the drop shipper to have your company logo on the package delivered, so the customers will think the package came directly from your store.

Wholesalers typically require payment in advance before shipping merchandise. As your own customers pay you when the orders are placed, you can then transfer the payment to the wholesale company keeping the difference between your price and the wholesale price as profit. Obviously, your site will charge more than what the wholesaler will charge. A good price for most items would be 15% to 30% higher than what you paid the wholesaler. Retail prices are typically higher than wholesale prices, and most people searching for jewelry online shop with retail stores and not wholesalers.

There are alternatives to setting up your own site. You can find a jewelry wholesale company online who will provide a ready made website to sell their items. You run the site and keep all the profits but usually are locked to ordering goods from only one wholesaler and also have to pay a fee to them for the site. Additionally your site will have a similar layout and design to all other similar sites run by the wholesaler. This is not as profitable as running your own site, so should be considered only in a worst case scenario type of situation.

Another option is to open an eBay shop. There are costs in setting up an eBay store, but you can make your store unique and are not bound to any one wholesale company. You also get the advantage of being listed in the eBay directory and all the exposure that brings. If you do not want to design a store you can simply start eBay auctions for your jewelry; this is much more affordable than setting up an eBay store. Things to keep in mind during eBay auctions is to set a minimum reserve price so you don't lose money on low bids and to clearly state that all shipping and insurance costs have to be borne by the buyer.

Starting an online jewelry store is currently one of the fastest ways of starting a business. There are very few business ventures that anyone can start in a few hours and see product turnaround within the first twenty-four hour period.

Here are some helpful resources for starting your own jewelry business online:
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/checklist-for-starting-your-online-jewelry-store.html
http://www.streetdirectory.com/travel_guide/18902/online_business/is_an_online_jewelry_store_a_fast_way_to_riches.html
http://thehandcraftedjewelrymall.com/start_online_jewelry_store.html