4 Exciting Ways to Make Money Selling Jewelry From Home

Do you know that the jewelry industry now thrives on eCommerce sales? There are more people shopping for these items online nowadays than they do with retail stores. With that comes the opportunity to make money selling jewelry from home through various business models. What are they and which one should you choose? Read on to find out more.

1) MLM Jewelry Companies

Direct selling aka network marketing is used by companies that carry their own brands and distribute their products through personal consultants. Dominated mostly by health care and beauty products, the jewelry niche is also becoming a popular business opportunity.

The way to get started is pretty much like this. You would sign up under a sponsor, get recruited under her team, purchase a business kit and start selling. There are generally two methods of earning; product sales commissions and multilevel compensation in which the combination of both can yield a pretty lucrative income, or so it seems.

Here are some companies that may interest you;  

• Chloe and Isabel
• Stella and Dot
• Sabika
• Premier Designs
• Touchstone Crystal

The Pros

There are many perks to becoming a so-called ‘jewelry consultant’.

• Firstly, the products are usually stylish and good in quality. Hence, they sell at a higher price range which will yield bigger sales commissions (about 20% to 40%).
• As a member, you are able to buy your own personal jewelry for up to 50% discount.
• You hardly ever work alone because there’s always a team of consultants to guide you around sales and marketing.
• There are a lot of incentives such as bonuses and all-expense-paid trips, to keep you motivated in your business venture.
• Since most of these companies have embraced eCommerce, you don’t have to stock any inventory because customers can buy online through your referral link and you’d still get credit for it. In a way, it doesn’t cost a lot to start up.

The Cons

However, in order to be successful in networking companies, there’s more than just product selling.

• You need to learn how to recruit new members because that’s the largest contribution to the compensation plan. Basically, the more downlines you can create, the more profit you’ll earn.
• Among their favorite marketing techniques is selling one-to-one (via home parties or pop up stores) and attending training events which can take up a lot of time, money and energy.
• Even though these companies have strong eCommerce presences, the personal websites they provide for consultants are often duplicates and subpar in terms of quality. Their sites are usually not optimized for the search engines and product promotion is their primary content.
• In order to withdraw your earnings, oftentimes it is required to become an active consultant by achieving a certain volume of sales for the month. Now, don’t get me wrong – having a business goal is a good thing, but one should also approach it in a practical manner. Jewelry, in general, is not a necessity. It’s more of a luxury item one would spend if they have surplus money. So the challenge would be – how do you find customers with this type of financial capabilities in order to reach your monthly target? That’s something to really think about.

Ideal for – High achieving individuals who are comfortable and enjoy the social engagement, hustling, and team building.

2) Dropship Jewelry

A drop-ship business general involves 3 parties – the wholesaler, the customer and you, the seller. When you secure a sales order from an online customer, the wholesaler will pack and ship the item directly to the customer without ever passing through you. The difference between the retail selling price (what the customer pays you) and the cost of fulfilling the product (what you pay to the wholesaler) is the profit margin.

In order to partner with a wholesaler, you can search for them online (usually found in the ad list section) or sign up with an aggregate company and let them match you with a wholesaler (for a service fee).

The Pros

• Depending on which platform, you can list as many products as you like without having to worry about the cost of inventory stocking.
• You can also leverage from the wide variety of jewelry range to do some market testing – find out what is popular, what is not and then focus on the best items to sell.

The Cons

• Dropshipping is a fairly competitive market because there are literally minimal barriers to run this business. As a result, a lot of people could be selling the same thing which might make the niche appear to be over-saturated and less unique in the eyes of the customers.
• Since the items are fairly common and average in quality, the profit margin wouldn’t be as high as what you would get with MLM jewelry range.
• Product shortage and quality are few common problems faced by most sellers and there’s very little you can do about it. When that happens, it could negatively affect sale orders and your reputation with online customers.

Ideal for – People who are self-motivated and likes to work entirely online. Prior knowledge about jewelry and specifically, online store marketing is an added advantage.

3) Sell Your Own Jewelry

For those who put up stalls for Sunday markets or have a strong passion for crafting jewelry, selling them on a personal online store is the best way to go. Unlike commercial ones, handmade jewelry production is smaller in scale, but they do appeal to a certain set of audience nevertheless. Now, there are two ways to go about this.

First, you could create an online store (like the example above) in the Etsy’s marketplace which is well-known for showcasing artisanal products. For every successful sale, a certain percentage goes to pay for Etsy’s transaction and product listing fees so you don’t get to take 100% of the profit. That’s fair enough because the marketplace provides you with visitors in the first place.

Secondly, you could set up a personalized website that comes with an online store feature if you want to have more control over your business. That means you are going to get your own custom domain, optimize your site on Google and best of all, keep 100% of what you earn 🙂

The Pros

• Handmade jewelry is unique in their own way and often carry sentimental values for the wearer. Their scarcity is probably what makes them a sought after gift/crafting ideas and this is proven through the various search terms that are showing up on Google.

• As the owner of your own jewelry, you can dictate your own selling price that’s reasonable for the customers, yet capable of covering the cost of production.
• Personalized items help to build great business relationship and people who like your products are usually recurring clients as well.

The Cons

• An online store is not just something that you set up and forget. There is a lot of tweaking involved to get your small business noticed online and this is done through search engine optimization aka SEO. For those who’ve never been involved in online marketing, the process can be quite a learning curve.
• Making and marketing your jewelry at the same time can be a juggling task, especially if you are doing it all by yourself. Hence, I would recommend getting the help of families and friends to help out so that you can even out the workload and make your business grow more efficiently.

Ideal for – Individuals who are creative and interested to use online platforms to build their own customer base and branding.  

4) Jewelry Affiliate Programs

This last part is probably my favorite way of starting a business in the online world. Affiliate marketing is extremely low risk, therefore it is suitable for most beginners. The process basically involves reviewing a certain product from a company that you are affiliated with, in this case, a piece of jewelry or related items – on blog content to help educate customers about their purchase.

In short, you are basically sharing experience and knowledge about this niche with a whole new audience who are eager to learn. Many jewelry companies who have an eCommerce presence (besides MLMs) are already actively engaging with affiliates to sell their products online because they know that personal opinions matter when it comes to converting modern shoppers.

For example, 1928, a vintage-inspired jewelry company pays 15% commission for every sale. If someone buys this blue and crystal necklace (image above) through your affiliate link, you could earn about $7 for this particular item. Here are other lists of companies that offer jewelry affiliate programs and I’ve also included their commission rates for your reference;

• Blue Nile – 5% (via CJ Affiliate)
• Olive and Piper – 6% (via ShareASale network)
• Jane – 10%
• Jewel on Fire – 10% (via Rakuten Marketing)
• Alex and Ani – 10%
• Lilyfair Jewelry – 15%

As for blogging platforms, my recommendation would be to use self-hosted WordPress as it offers more functionality and diversity according to the progress of your site. Many successful niche bloggers will vouch for that, so it’s pretty obvious why it makes a good choice.

The Pros

• Just like drop shipping, there’s no need to invest in inventory, but unlike it, you are actually sending customers directly to the jewelry merchants for them to process the orders and ship the products. At your end, you just need to promote and receive commissions for every successful sale that is referred.
• When you submerge into the world of creating content, you are able to tap into the minds of consumers (which is completely legal) by analyzing what people search on Google within this niche. These queries (aka targeted keywords) can give you a better understanding of what people are really interested before you actually promote something to them. Here are some examples of How-to jewelry related topics that can be linked to a product review.

• When your blog achieves a certain level of traffic, product reviews can potentially generate recurring commissions for a fairly long term, without having you to do much.

The Cons

• Most merchants require your blog to have some amount of traffic first before they approve of your affiliate application. Blogs that are newly established with very little content are often turned down.
• Similar to running an online store, natural traffic is acquired mostly through the search engines and this could take a while to happen especially if your blog is still new. In other words, it could take a year or more before you earn anything substantial. Here’s where a lot of people give up, but if you persevere, your blog will surely benefit from the massive traffic that the search engines could provide.

Ideal for – Individuals who want to build a business through blogging. Having the ability to convey a variety of jewelry topics effectively through writing is an added advantage.

Which One Is The Right Model for You

So, there you have it – MLM, dropshipping, personal store and blogging – 4 exciting ways you can make money selling jewelry from home without needing a huge investment. Which model resonates the most with you?

The online space is where most jewelry shoppers are right now and if you are looking to create a successful business in this niche, that is where you need to be. In my recommended training platform for online entrepreneurs, there are plenty of tools and resources to help you get started for free.

Have a look inside to see how it could work for your jewelry business and if you need any help, feel free to get in touch with me.

Question – Do you have any experience selling or buying jewelry online? What do you think about this niche as a business opportunity? Please share your thoughts in the comment space below.