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View Full Version : Websites - Good Thing???



laura webb
25-06-2009, 03:40 PM
I have tried selling Jewellery at craft fairs and it has not been as successful as I'd anticipated. There's an awful lot of competition, however I'm reasonably confident about the quality and standard of my pieces in which I specialise in sterling silver.

Has anyone any other ideas of places that you can sell handmade jewellery? Mine is fairly mainstream, not hugely outside the box. Is a site also a good idea???

Where else can I sell my handmade jewellery???

AlexandraBuckle
02-07-2009, 09:31 AM
I have a website with an online shop, though I find I sell more through other avenues.

I've not tried to push the website with online advertising which might work...?

I think of my website as my brochure, and customers do seem to like it when you say you have a website, but personally, I wouldn't recommend spending too much on a site initially. If you do it, keep it small and cheap to start with.

noelsharpe
02-07-2009, 09:44 AM
Are your "leafy" designs etched? Would you care to share some techniques with us? I also love the flowers you use in the "blossom" pendants and rings. Is that hand pierced or have you made a die?

AlexandraBuckle
03-07-2009, 08:23 AM
The leafy bits would be etched if I had the resources to do it, lol. Anyone know how to etch silver easily at home...? I have very limited space.
I did a lot of etching at uni, it was fun.

Instead i use a copper plate which I had scribed in a vieny pattern and put the plate and the silver throught the rolling mill to transfer the viens.

The flowers are all hand drawn and then pierced, so each one is slightly different which gives each piece and really individual feel.

Both the leafy and flower designs are very labour intensive, but hey - I enjoy doing it :)

Dawny
03-07-2009, 09:28 AM
I'm not in the position to have my own site, however I know of a few designers etc who have gone on to good things via selling their designs online. Can also get good commissions through this channel. Don't disregard fairs etc, but websites can be extremely cost and time effective.

Plus sites don't have to cost the earth as long as they are functional. As I say I don't have my own YET but I am quite clued up on ecommerce websites - I've been reading lol, and spending lots online!

Bee
03-07-2009, 11:01 AM
What about starting with something like Etsy? It's easy (and free) to set up a sellers account. Just make sure you tag your items well so that they can be found easily...

agent_44
05-07-2009, 02:12 PM
Websites are a good thing when done properly and enough time and effort is invested in them! I'm also a Web Developer and am using just Etsy at the moment to sell my jewellery simply because right now I don't have the time to invest in a decent website for myself. I will start work on it in the next few weeks, (quitting a FT job) but it's not w good plan to have something that doesn't look good/professional or that odesn't work properly sat out there as it could have a negative impact on sales/reputation.

MuranoSilver
05-07-2009, 08:42 PM
There are lots of online selling sites that will give you goos exposure
they inlude Etsy, Folksy, Misi & Dawanda. There are lots of others
probably best having a look at their pricing fees to see which is best for you
Nicola x

HMPjewellery
05-07-2009, 11:59 PM
Teehee
Beat me to it Nicola:)

I sell on Folksy (which is great as its in £ not $) as well as having my own site. as Nicola says there are lots out there, some take commission...some dont, it depends what it is you are looking for.
For setting up websites I have just used moonfruit, an incredibly easy package to use.
Paying £8.99ish a month (thats the middle package you can pay as low a £4 or as high as £15) I got a free web address for a year, email and all the support you need, you can logg in any time to edit....i am singing praises cuz it really is fab. oh and you have the power to have your own shop too. :p other places to sell...objectfetish,myehive, artfulhome.

hope this helps (and hope im not in trouble for pluggin other sites?!:confused:)

Best wishes

Hannah

Dano
06-07-2009, 02:48 PM
folksy? ooh i'll have a look at that. i've been looking at etsy myself but i gathered on my own and from a few friends who use it that nobody really buys anything much, it's turned out to be mostly makers looking at each other's stuff, and there's some WILD stupid pricing on there and... well, to be blunt, there's a lot of absolutely terrible things which drown out the good stuff.

Peaches
10-07-2009, 04:18 PM
guys, another good site to design and host a site on is yola.com. They are fantastic and it is really easy to do!!

amazingbabe
10-07-2009, 05:11 PM
Hi, I did'nt quite know where to begin either when it came to having a website but then my husband discovered Mrsite.com where you can buy a package it cost £39.95 i think and pretty easy to use. I can't post my website for you to have a look so if you wish you can email me colemanwx@hotmail.com and i will send you a link.

myke
16-07-2009, 06:15 PM
Hi I use a free website host called spanglefish its quite easy to use. good luck myke

Ominicci
16-07-2009, 06:15 PM
I am using mrsite to do my web site and am happy with it at the moment - not finished yet but doing it slowly. My brother is a web programmer and wouldn't touch it with a barge pole - but that's because he knows what he is doing on the programming side. Mrsite is effectively a load of templates that you can customise yourself. Don't buy it through their site though, get it through Amazon for half the price - one off charge for a year. ou can get your own .co.uk or .com etc name and e-mail addresses, if it is not already taken too - that's one of the most effective marketing tools I think... looks more professional. The Pro package gives you the shop and you will need a paypal account to operate it. After the first year you go onto a pay monthly (£7.99) system, but you should know by then if it works for you or not.

Dano - Folksy is just the english version of Etsy (I agree with your comment :rolleyes:)

lynnm
19-07-2009, 02:26 PM
I can promise you that www.simplyeddies.co.uk is the best! you can get a website on there from £39.99 a year (+ domain name)Paypal comes with it and if you should have a problem you actually get to speak to someone who is not only English but lives in this country! I know because the company I was with before 'did me down' and Simply Eddies saved me!

EmmaRose
20-07-2009, 05:51 PM
research your fairs.....often its not you just not the right market....who do you want to sell your jewellery to? (what kind of person buys your jewellery...think age, sex, demographic), then where do they go......not just craft shows, consider exhibitions, specialist fairs, if you make for example dog jewellery how about dog shows. At homes at Xmas or open studios for your region. Can you wholesale? Local boutiques for example?
Em

ben b
24-07-2009, 06:47 PM
..........................

AlexandraBuckle
24-07-2009, 07:34 PM
To have a successful online sales website, you will need to advertise it, either in printed media like you would a shop, or by electronic means, such as paying web listing sites, 'webmasters' and 'seo' agencies, to have it appear on searches, which can have great results...or..waste thousands.


I get phone calls all the time from SEO (search engine optimisation) companies who can guarantee to me that I'll be 'top of Google'.

My soon to be husband is a web developer and he says its a load of rubbish, which I'm sure it is.

Be very wary of EVER paying out for SEO.

I mean how can they guarantee it anyway and for what keywords? I am top of google if you type my name in and I didn't pay for that. Imagine being top for typing in silver jewellery - no amount of money can ever make that happen I'm sure!

AlexandraBuckle
24-07-2009, 07:40 PM
If that last post comes accross as being angry - it wasn't directed at you Ben :)
I just hate getting sales calls! :mad:

geti-titanium
26-08-2009, 11:11 PM
Websites are a necessary evil, time consuming and, if you get it wrong, a big drain on your finances.

Start off cheap with low expectations and then you won't be disappointed, especially when you realise that only 1% of websites are doing any business on the net - if you aren't on page 1 of google you are going to have very little traffic. Don't aim for popular single word search terms that everybody is fighting for, instead go for less popular search phrases and more of them.

Think about how you search for a subject - would you type in 'jewellery' or something like 'what jewellery can I wear to go with a toga' (random phrase there but hopefully you know what I mean :Y:

Unfortunately 99% of websites end up gathering virtual dust and many so called SEO expert cowboys will charge a fortune and make promises that they shouldn't.

Learn as much about SEO and website marketing as you can and do it yourself - the knowledge is pretty basic, but the doing is time consuming.

All in all though you pretty much need a website these days as your virtual business card.

Solunar Silver Studio
27-08-2009, 06:11 AM
It is well worth looking at some of the other, older threads in the Cooksons Forum Business and Marketing section if you want some extra imput on how to sell your stuff and how to make your website work ...(a particularly good thread by Mooncottage, Di, on website optimisation).

People tend to forget that allong with the twaddle a lot of us put out there:-" - there are some true gems of information!! Most of us struggle with similar problems and so these same questions - in different forms - keep coming up!!

lesley
27-08-2009, 10:42 AM
I'm new to this selling lark and I went the website route 'cos I'm too shy to do fairs.
I have a Mr Site package and it is easy to use but I've had terrible problems with it - emails not working, guest book disappearing, listings duplicating, disappearing or moving around. I once spent four hours trying to remove text that just kept multiplying until I had twelve descriptions for each item!!
I'm on a couple of other forums and I know my experiences are unusally bad although others do have regular problems.
Generally problems are eventually resolved but this unreliability really bugs me now. If I could do my own site I would.

I started in May and sales are very slow although I have to admit I'm not very clued up about marketing. Word of mouth seems to be my best tool. People seem genuinely impressed when they receive the pieces and some even ask for some business cards to hand round.:D

I also set up an Etsy shop a couple of months ago and have sold nothing so far. I think it's true that people buy components and beads on Etsy but rarely the finished item. Plus, there's so many US sellers with ridiculously low prices.
I'm not sure if I'm kidding myself hoping for a discerning customer willing to take a risk on someone who has no selling history on Etsy?:dontknow:

Has anyone got an Etsy success story?

Boo
27-08-2009, 11:18 AM
I have an Etsy shop and have had moderate success there (enough to make it worth doing) - 70 sales - although recently a chunk have been for a gift box tutorial - but I see those sales as paying my fees there and anything else I sell is a bonus. I'd do better perhaps if I worked it more. But it compliments my own UK site pretty well (where I do rather better) - I've settled on concentrating on those two on-line venues and abandoning the others - it ends up way too much work to do well otherwise.

If you're struggling with Mr Site - I went a different route (and I spent a LONG time trying things before I settled on this) - I bought web hosting that has access to the more common cart systems - ZenCart, OS Commerce and I settled on Cubecart - you can install them and set up your shop that way - I tried them all before making a decision.

I find CubeCart very easy to work with - now I have it set up how I want (although there are some further custom mods beyond my skills that I want when I have funds) and have been much, much happier since I got it going with a decent amount of stock listed. It's just about at the stage where I'm pretty happy with it. The URL's in my sig if you want a nosey.

The end result isn't quite as elegant as I had in my mind initially, I fully intended buying a lovely custom skin for it, but when I was testing the basic system using a tweaked standard template, I got friends and family and other forum buddies to test it for me before I committed to the cart and they all said they preferred the clean lines and ease of use to the skin I showed them - so I stayed with it and fine tuned the design a little - it's a custom colour-way and I re-did the graphics to match, but it's a fairly standard template.

Di Sandland
27-08-2009, 11:37 AM
FWIW - even though I have access to Microsoft Front Page and have used it to create previous websites, this time I really couldn't be bothered with the hassle (not that I don't care but I don't have as much available time).

My solution was to use a webhost that offered an 'idiots' web-writing package. I'm happy enough with the result - I was unable to personalise it as much as I would have liked - but the feedback has been good. It took me just a couple of hours to get it up and running.

Would I use it again? Yes but only because its so quick and easy. If a truly one-off, individual site is important to you its not the way to go. However, if all you want to do is get an online presence, that looks relatively professional, fairly quickly this will do the trick.

A number of web hosts have variations on a theme. I have used the 1&1 package as well but I didn't much like the company.