When it comes to selling your jewellery online, you have a variety of alternatives available to you.
Continue reading to find out why it is beneficial to have your own website as well as which e-commerce platforms are the most often used. It is essential that you locate the appropriate internet platform for your jewellery company.
What exactly is online business?
Any digital transaction for the purchase of a good or service is included in e-commerce. It must be simple, right? If only that were possible.
Craftspeople now have an easier time selling their wares online to a far larger audience because to the proliferation of online marketplaces like Etsy and Amazon Homemade.
However, if you don’t have your own website, you won’t be able to take advantage of the potential to expand your company and communicate with your consumers.
Why bother with a website if you already have an Etsy shop?
Even if you feel most at home selling on a third-party website like Etsy or Amazon Homemade, it is still a good idea for your company to have its own website, especially if you want to sell online.
When you have your own website, you have a great deal of control over your online retail business as well as your digital brand.
Your website gives you the ability to construct anything from scratch using different elements like photographs, text, and graphics/logos.
You may also completely personalise the look of your website by changing the fonts and colours. You also have the ability to control the types of adverts that are displayed on your website, if any at all.
Customers will find it much simpler to recognise and refer their friends to your business if you have a completely branded website. If you ask someone where they got a piece of jewellery, you could hear them reply, “from a shop on Etsy.”
Even if they relay the name of your shop to their buddy, there’s still a chance that their acquaintance may be sidetracked by other sellers on Etsy.
If someone makes a purchase on your website, they will simply be able to remember your company and provide it to a friend so that their buddy may look it up instantly.
When compared to a platform that requires users to pay a fee for each transaction and/or listing, a website is, in most cases, the most cost-effective option.
When compared to free-to-setup stores, the initial cost of setting up a website might be a deterrent; nevertheless, the monthly maintenance rates of a website are sometimes far less than the purchase prices.
Building your own website is now as easy as dragging and dropping pre-made elements onto a design thanks to e-commerce services like Shopify.
If you decide to have a professional web designer develop your website, the fees associated with the initial setup may vary depending on the designer’s rates but are likely to be greater in any case.
However, the most crucial thing to keep in mind is that you should never sell your jewellery on a single site.
What happens if a platform decides to modify its pricing or its policies? What happens if they update the algorithms such that your items are no longer displayed? If there is no other choice, you will need to learn to live with the situation.
Because they accidentally violated specific regulations, some stores were forced to close their doors. After that… In the digital age, there is always the possibility that something may go wrong, thus it is important to maintain backups for your dedicated clients.
Etsy and Amazon Handmade are both wonderful opportunities to meet new clients; but, there is a lot of other competitors on these platforms as well.
It is even possible that you may stumble onto an advertisement for one of your shop’s rivals on occasion.
Which website platforms are available to choose from?
Because having a website is becoming increasingly important, you now have access to a broad variety of tools and resources that make it simple to create your own jewellery e-commerce website.
*Note: The prices shown for each platform are subject to alteration at any time and without prior notification. We will make every effort to keep this up to date, however it is possible that the rates given are no longer accurate.
Squarespace
For jewellery manufacturers and other types of e-commerce firms, Squarespace is without a doubt one of the most popular website building platforms available today.
Their platform includes templates that are simple to modify, choices for password protection and search functionality for your website, as well as an app that will assist you in keeping your website up to date.
Their e-commerce platform has a variety of capabilities, some of which include merchandising and classifying choices, administration of inventory and orders, the capacity to offer discounts and sell gift cards, and a great deal more.
Additionally, they provide unique domains, connectors for email and social media marketing, as well as data to assist you in determining what approaches are successful.
The cost for an e-commerce website begins at $26 per month for the Basic features, and it increases to $40 per month for the Advanced features. There are solutions that are more affordable; however, these options do not come with the majority of the e-commerce capabilities.
They also provide a free trial period of fourteen days so that you may test out their builder and choose whether or not it is suitable for your needs. You may examine a preview of every template before deciding to use it, and after selecting the goals for your website, you’ll be given suggestions for templates to use.
Shopify
Shopify is another one of the most widely used platforms for the development of websites. They provide you with access to more than 70 templates that are simple to modify, as well as a personalised domain and features that make mobile purchasing simple.
Make use of their app to facilitate the management of your business as well as the connection of your website to fulfilment locations such as Amazon. Their websites offer unrestricted access to product assistance as well as product organisation and connection with social media.
In addition to that, you will be provided with access to a suite of analytics, a mobile application, and web hosting services. Visit https://www.shopify.com/online to learn about all of their capabilities.
Shopify is an e-commerce platform, thus each of its plans comes equipped with the essentials required to conduct business through the internet.
The beginning price for the basic plan is $29 per month, while the beginning price for the comprehensive platform is $79 per month. Shopify also provides a free trial period of 14 days, during which you can test out their e-commerce platform as well as their themes.
Wix
Wix is maybe most well-known for its status as an easy-to-use, straightforward, and fundamental website builder. However, they do provide e-commerce as an alternative.
Wix also provides drag-and-drop accessible and simple to personalise template options. They provide safe online payments, the ability to list an infinite number of products, the recovery of abandoned shopping carts, as well as interfaces with social networking and review websites.
Visit https://www.wix.com/ecommerce/website to learn more about all of their features.
Wix allows you to get started developing websites for free, and then you may choose to upgrade to one of their paid business plans: Pricing starts at $23 per month for the Basic plan, $27 per month for the Unlimited plan, and $49 per month for the Advanced plan.
Weebly
E-commerce options provided by Weebly and powered by Square are available. A free domain and SSL security, choices for shipping labels, payments processed through PayPal, emails sent to customers whose carts have been abandoned, and insights to help you build your business are some of the things that they provide.
In the same way as the others, the templates are quite simple to modify, and their mobile app even allows you to make changes to your website.
Visit https://www.weebly.com/features/ecommerce-website to learn more about all of the capabilities offered by this company.
Weebly allows users to create even the most fundamental websites for free or for a fee of $6 per month. On the other hand, you should go with either their Professional plan, which costs $12 per month, or their Performance plan, which costs $26 per month.
You will have access to all of the most advanced e-commerce technologies if you opt with the Performance plan.
Alternative methods for creating your own website.
There are a variety of other choices available in addition to the top four e-commerce website building platforms for jewellers that have been discussed here.
By integrating with WooCommerce, WordPress is possible to produce an e-commerce website that is extremely modifiable and suitable for companies of varying sizes.
Additionally, they provide a library of additional integrations for your website that can be purchased for a fee or used for free. On the other hand, WooCommerce isn’t always user-friendly for beginners, which means it might not be as simple to understand and configure.
Due to the fact that it was developed for artists, Big Cartel is also a popular choice among jewellers. It provides you with all of the fundamental capabilities necessary to develop an online store, but it doesn’t go much farther than that. You have limited options for customising and branding your product.
The cost is determined in part by the quantity of items that you offer. Big Commerce is another extremely configurable alternative, however similar to the others, it isn’t always user-friendly for beginners. They do, however, provide choices that will assist in the creation of wholesale websites.
Employing a website designer to construct a fully customised website for you is still another choice, however this one is contingent on the stage your company is now operating at and the scope of your requirements.
However, this will most likely be the choice that costs the most money and requires the most amount of effort on your part.