Promote Your Handmade Jewellery For Free

We're introducing a new free advertising opportunity for jewellery hand-makers over at www.pressies4princesses.co.uk (pressies) - the UK gift retailer I manage.

Your banner advert could appear on high traffic, relevant pages, such as this...

Handmade British jewellery

... for FREE!

It's part of pressies programme to provide quid pro quo support for handmakers.

Over 25% of pressies' gift range is handmade, including many best-sellers. And, their passion for hand-making is demonstrated by their current Hunt for Hand-making Heroes New Gift Competition.

To qualify, you need to be a UK designer hand-making your jewellery, with your own well-presented website and good quality products.

Only a very limited number of spots will be available. Please contact me directly with your website address if you want to take part.

Cheers,

Steve

Are you a jewellery designer or not?

Gemma over at Perlina Jewellery picked up on my post about Julieann Beads, which kind of turned into a rant about poor business sense in the handmade jewellery sector. She invited me to take a look at her jewellery and, specifically, her prices!



I left my comments over at her blog and in the process think I really got to the (even if I say so myself) essence of this pricing problem that so many artisans seem to experience. So, I thought I'd best get it posted and get back to reviewing wonderful jewellery and handmade crafts!

"Am I a designer?" To me, that's the main question a handmaker needs to ask themselves when setting prices. Quite simply, when someone buys one of your pieces, are they paying for your style?

Is your beaded necklace (in the case of Gemma) a random collection of beads? Nope?! Didn't think so. So why price it like that? Why base the price on the cost of materials and the time taken to construct each one? What about the time taken and, more importantly, knowledge and flair required to research and dream up the creation?

Give the average person and bunch of beads and plenty of time and they'll come up with nothing worth selling - I know I wouldn't. So, you should be rewarding yourself for that. You're a designer first; a maker second.

Of course, if your style sucks then people won't pay for it. But, in that case, few people will want to buy it whatever the price. When was the last time you bought jewellery you didn't like just because it was cheap?

Handmakers should be confident that people will pay for their style and the prices should reflect that. I'm not saying rip people off, but they should cover the costs of doing business properly - not as a hobby. And, that applies to all crafts, not just jewellery.

Be aware that low prices set a low quality expectation. People generally expect to get what they pay for. Is this an offer too good to be true?

Finally, always remember that the web is your short-cut to the consumer. In the real world products are more often made and sold on to retailers (online or otherwise).

Sadly, retailers also have to make money. So, you must start with prices that can support retail from the outset. The extra margin is your reward for performing all the extra functions of marketing, sales processing, packaging, delivery, credit risk, etc - that your retailer would normally handle. And, you should never ever undercut your retailers - not if you value their business!

So come on folks, be bold and price accordingly and, above all, leave all modesty behind!