The jewelry business is incredibly profitable. Regardless of the situation of the global market, it’s a niche that will never go out because it’s such an integral part of fashion. After all, jewelry has been part of our daily lives since the start of civilization.
The jewelry market is saturated and competitive. But once you’ve broken through the barriers, it’s just a matter of time before you reap your return of investments. When it comes to starting a fashion jewelry boutique, it’s always tricky to find the perfect source for your products.
So how do you do that exactly?
From finding the right products to looking for your wholesale jewelry suppliers, here are some essential tips about planning the sourcing process of your jewelry business.
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Find Your Niche
Before you start planning sourcing for your fashion jewelry business, you have to find and build your own niche first.
Since you’re starting with fashion jewelry, that greatly narrows the specifics. So when you’re already sourcing for your products, you have some guidelines to work with. Usually, these are some of the things that you need to keep in mind when it comes to sourcing fashion jewelry:
- In trend or a classic piece
- More on the affordable/inexpensive side
- Make and materials aren’t premium when compared to fine jewelry
- Produced in high quantities
- The target audience is an everyday customer
By finding your niche, you can now start to envision how your business is going to appeal to your customers. Do you want them to go to your boutique when they’re looking for occasion-specific jewelry or for pieces that they could wear every day regardless of their plans? By having this initial framework for your boutique, you’ll be much more equipped when it comes to sourcing the proper products.
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Do Your Trends Research
Going into a fashion jewelry business means that you’re an instrument of fashion trends and styles. With a saturated market like this, you always have to be one step ahead of the program. The way you achieve that is by having proper research on the trends and fads of jewelry.
For instance, this year’s high fashion trends are golden chain necklaces, bold hoop earrings, enamel jewelry items and assorted seashell elements wholesale earrings designs. Grasping these industry trends’ insights will largely facilitate your boutique sourcing plans.
Ideally, you want your inventory to be continuously flowing. A stagnant inventory means that your boutique is losing money and opportunity. Your products should be going in and out at a considerable rate. That means that you should only invest in jewelry pieces that your customers will buy.
At the same time, you can’t just comfortably go with the flow. In fashion jewelry, there’s always a new thing going on and it’s up to you if it’s a trend or a short-time fad. So calculate carefully on how long you can stretch something.
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Find Your Own Wholesale Jewelry Suppliers
The beauty of being in business with fashion jewelry is that unlike other jewelry boutiques, you don’t need to deal with jewelry-making or cashing out a huge capital to buy expensive pieces.
It’s all about finding the right wholesale jewelry suppliers. Your suppliers will essentially be one of the pillars of your business. When planning for sourcing, this will be one of your major concerns.
When it comes to looking for your own wholesale jewelry suppliers, you can look local or international. Going local has definitely a lot of perks because it’ll be much more accessible for your business. On the other hand, the options might be limited compared to outsourcing it from another country like China.
Trust is an important value when looking for your suppliers. If you can’t trust your supplier that they will deliver high-quality products every time that you ask for shipment, then there’s no point in being in business with them. Remember that your boutique’s products are dependent on them, so make sure that you look for a reliable supplier.
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Know The Proper Products
It’s integral that the products you’re going to source and sell are included heavily in your planning. Now that you’ve done your market and trend research and looked around for your supplier, you should have at least an initial range of the products that are viable for your boutique.
As for choosing the products, you have to think about your brand and how you want it to be represented through your fashion jewelry pieces. When choosing for the right pieces, here are some things that you might want to take note of:
- Target audience
- Your customers’ purchasing power
- Fashion jewelry trend
- Marketability
- Profit
- The capacity of your supplier
- Your capital
It’s important to understand that in your planning process, you have to be as realistic as possible. While there might be tendencies that you can be too overconfident, remind yourself that you’re just at the starting point. So when it comes to your products, only stock your inventory with products that you are confident that you can sell and is well within your budget so when you hit a snag or fallback, your boutique won’t be financially incapacitated.
Since you’re just establishing your product sourcing, it’s highly recommended that you start with something small. There’s no need to explore every category of fashion jewelry in one go. For example, you can start with necklaces and earrings first then just expand your inventory as your boutique grows.
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Know When To Stay In The Budget
When you’re planning for product sourcing, it’s unavoidable that you’ll have to compromise on some things.
Take a closer look at your financials and determine how far you can go in terms of the initial budget. It’s always crucial for businesses to start with smart financing. Know how much you can spend and how much extra room you’re going to allow yourself to take. After all, it’s natural to go under or over on your budget at the start. The breaking point is knowing how much is too much.
When it comes to planning for your jewelry sourcing, there’s only so much planning you could do. Not all business plans are foolproof. However, having a proper plan will be the extra boost you need for you to become successful in the fashion jewelry business.
Interesting related article: “How severely is COVID-19 affecting the jewelry sector?”