How to Sell More Jewelry This Holiday Season

October through December is the biggest jewelry-selling time of year for most of us – and here are 19 ways to make the most of it!

(If you have ideas that should be part of this list, I’d love to include them! Please share them using the Comment form below.)

1) Set Up a Holiday Boutique in Your Home or Studio

If you have a basement, guest room, second living room, or other space you can use for this, set up a nice display to create a jewelry and gift boutique. Call, email, or send a postcard to let your regular customers, friends, and family know you’re all set up and ready for them to stop in *by appointment only* to take care of their Christmas shopping. Offer a free gift if they bring a friend.

People love this convenience – especially the closer it gets to Christmas! My customers are thrilled to purchase unique gifts without having to brave the crowded stores for them. They especially appreciate being able to arrange to stop by on their way to or from work.

2) Offer Volume Discounts on Giftable Items

… specifically, items that can help shoppers take care of a whole gift-giving category at once – for example, nieces, daughter’s friends, co-workers, employees, teachers, etc. Put a sign next to it, put a banner on your website next to it, or send your customers a postcard / email newsletter advertising it. The more they buy, the deeper the discount. (Price these so that even at the deepest discount you’re still making an adequate profit.) These sales really add up.

3) Help Working Folks Get Their Christmas Shopping Done

Do a trunk show (a one-artist jewelry show) for the employees of a business. People like to meet the jewelry artist who created the pieces they’re buying, and busy employees appreciate this easy way to shop.

If you do get the opportunity to do a trunk show, be sure your contact person at the business gets the word out to as many of the employees as possible (an email or flyers stating the date and time of your show would work well). For maximum sales, see if you can arrange to have your trunk show on the business’ payday.

4) Do a Trunk Show in a Restaurant or Cafe

Any restaurant, cafe, tea / coffee shop, etc. that has high traffic would be a great spot for you to set up a trunk show. Particularly at lunch time, people are glad to quickly take care of a bit of shopping while they’re out. Offer the restaurant owner a percentage of your sales (20% is common) or reward him / her with jewelry as you would a jewelry party host.

5) Let a Friend Sell Your Jewelry at Work

Have a trusted friend or relative take a selection of your jewelry to work to show to co-workers. Include a pouch or gift box for each piece of jewelry so they will be easy gift purchases. I have a friend who does this for me, and she sells nearly everything she takes to work with her.

When she brings back the cash and checks she’s collected for me, I compensate her as though she’s hosted a home jewelry party – with either custom jewelry or pieces she chooses from my inventory.

6) Offer Enticing Impulse Items

Have a selection of low-priced stocking-stuffer type gift items. Bookmarks, keychains, purse/bookbag charms, small rings, zipper pulls, etc. can sell by the handful at this time of year. Design these items to be profitable to you if you sell them in the $5 to $7 range.

Place a tempting display of them at your “checkout” area along with a sign stating the price, any volume discounts, and suggested people to give them to. People are quite willing to toss in some impulse items when they’ve already decided to purchase something else from you.

7) Show Your Jewelry on Shopping Sites

Add selected pieces of your jewelry to various social shopping sites. For more info on that, see my article Social Shopping Websites – a Tool to Help You Grow Your Jewelry Business.

Add Your Jewelry to a “Gift Guide” Site

Contact the webmaster of a gift-finder or gift-idea website and see about advertising your jewelry there. These sites feature collections of gift ideas to make shopping easier, and often sell paid ad spaces. Google “gift ideas”, “find gift”, “gift guide”, etc. for potential sites of this type.

9) Get Seen on an “Indie Style” Site

Contact the webmaster of one of the indie style blogs and see what’s involved in having your jewelry listed there. Google “indie style blog”, “indie jewelry blog”, “indie fashion blog”, etc. to find some of these style-pulse blogs.

10) Serve the Business Gift Niche

Businesspeople need to give professional gifts on a regular basis – and especially at Christmas. However, it’s a time-consuming chore for them to figure out what to give and where to buy it. That’s where you enter the picture.

Position yourself to business professionals as their gift-giving solution, and they’ll keep you busy year-round. (My ebook Secrets of a Handcrafted Jewelry Shopping Service has complete details on selling your jewelry this way – including several unique tips and examples from my own experiences with selling jewelry as business gifts.)

11) Send Customers a Holiday Card – with a Twist

Many businesses send holiday cards to their customers in December to keep in touch and thank them. But here’s a twist on the holiday card idea that can be far more profitable:

A week before Thanksgiving, send your customers Thanksgiving cards, letting them know you’re thankful for their support of your business this past year. Enclose a coupon for a free gift with their next jewelry purchase. Be sure to mention that they can easily take care of their holiday gift-giving on your website, or from a selection you’ll be happy to bring to them.

If you do this mailout so that your customers receive your card and coupon before the huge “Black Friday” shopping day (the day after Thanksgiving), you should net a small avalanche of sales. You can have custom cards printed with a photo of your jewelry plus your message at online printers such as iPrint.

12) Design Christmas Jewelry

Many people like to have jewelry in Christmas colors to go with their holiday outfits. In addition to the traditional red, green, and gold, you may want to try softer versions of the traditional holiday color scheme – for example, sage green plus burgundy has been extremely successful for me.

And don’t forget another popular holiday color combination – deep blue plus white, like snow under a midnight sky. The icy sparkle of jewelry that’s ornamented only by clear Swarovski crystals is also very appealing at this time of year.

13) Carry a Selection of Jewelry Everywhere You Go

When people discover that you make jewelry, they’re often interested enough to buy a piece from you immediately – if you only had some of it with you. Unfortunately, if you don’t sell while the person’s buying impulse is hot, it’s harder to re-connect with him or her to make the sale later.

Consider carrying a small jewelry roll or travel pouch with you. Load it up with at least a dozen of your pieces in various price ranges, and keep it inside a tightly sealed zip-close bag, to keep it clean and reduce tarnish. Now when someone says, “Oh, I’d love to see more of your jewelry!” you can easily whip it out, and frequently make a sale right there on the spot.

Often when you do this, other people who see you opening up your jewelry roll will gather around and be interested in viewing and buying your work too. Remember to re-load your jewelry roll with more pieces when you get home!

14) Create Jewelry that Can be Sold in Sets

People often like to buy matching earrings to go with other pieces they’re giving someone. Also suggest to customers that they can save back the matching pieces to give to the same person one at a time, over the next few gift-giving occasions.

15) Unveil a New Jewelry Line

Give this new line an enticing name, and consider having a big “grand opening” for it, with a bit of fanfare. Perhaps even give it special packaging and tags. Let your regular customers know you’re having a private studio showing of this brand-new line so they can be the first to see it.

After that, you can display this new jewelry line prominently the rest of the season – both in your booth and on your website.

16) Send an Email Newsletter to Your Customers

Include a link to your newest jewelry and an incentive for customers to make a purchase. Ask them to forward your newsletter to any friends or family they think would be interested. Remind them of your free gift packaging, and consider offering to ship their out-of-town jewelry orders for their convenience.

17) Send a Photo Postcard to Your Customers

Make photo postcards showing one or more lovely images of your jewelry (iPrint is a good source for these), and send them to your customers with a special holiday offer.

18) Offer Free Shipping

… on all website orders placed before a certain date (whatever your cutoff date is for shipping in time for Christmas).

19) Offer “Website-Only” Specials

These can include a special jewelry line that’s available only on your website, or special pricing that applies only to online purchases, or even a free “mystery gift” that only comes with web purchases. The point is to offer incentives that make it a no-brainer for customers to buy from you online.

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For a sort of “Part 2″ of this article, see my article, “How to Sell More Jewelry During Next Year’s Holiday Season” – it’s in issue #63 of my newsletter; scroll down to the bottom half of the page for the article.

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