I personally think that taking good photos is more difficult than making our handmade jewelry! Everything has to be perfect to do justice to your handcrafted artisan jewelry. A picture is worth a thousand words if you’re a writer; a picture is priceless if you are trying to market your jewelry and unique gifts online!

Handmade jewelry photography is too important to leave to chance. Waiting for the sun to be exactly right is okay if you don’t have anything better to do but time is money and both are in short supply! You don’t have to wait for the cloud to pass or the direct sun to be on the left. Actually most of our pictures have been taken in the wee hours of the morning, once you get everything right it’s like you just can’t stop! If you are serious about taking great pictures you need a studio set-up. It’s not difficult and not too expensive considering the online marketing advantages.

We made our own light tent by making a cube and covering it with white rip-stop nylon fabric, cost about $20 to make. Let me know if you need instructions. We use  three 5200′K spotlights (daylight) about $35 each. We use studio stands (kinda costly) but swing arm lamps work too, just less adjustable. We bought a professional digital camera with a great macro lens, it hooks up directly to the computer and you just press enter so no shaky out of focus shots. The photos come up on the monitor so you can adjust the coloring, etc. You just set up the first item getting it just right, then replace it with the next item so photo shoots go quickly. Touch ups are at a minimum if the photos are taken well. There will always be those really shiny pieces that when zoomed in at 5000 times the actual size you will see yourself taking the picture. Smudging tools work well in those cases!

Take your time to learn about your camera and all the features, it will make your life much easier. Experiment with background colors but we have found that nothing shows our handmade jewelry as well as a white background. Make sure your designs stand out emphasizing the unique features of each piece. It is all about experimenting and finding the perfect settings for each photograph.

This maybe is extreme for someone just starting out but we have been making handcrafted jewelry and unique gifts for over 23 years and we have over 3,000 items! Photos are extremely important especially when marketing online and well worth the investment.

If you have any special tips or tricks that help to take great photos, I’d love to hear from you! We all need all the help we can get!

Best of Luck to everyone, Jenn

Handmade Jewelry-Handcrafted Copper Earrings-Dolphin Jewelry

Despite what all the so-called internet gurus say, internet marketing is not as easy as collecting money while you sleep. No, we did not wake up today to piles of money being deposited into our personal bank accounts. Not yesterday, not today and probably not tomorrow! But that dream is still there and we continue to work on it hoping that someday all our hard work will pay off, big time!

Until then we’ll continue to do what we have always done, sell handmade jewelry and unique gift ideas. I guess what I’m trying to say is don’t quit your day job quite yet. A lot of people get fed up with their life and want to start something new. One of the easiest looking things to do seems to be working at home on an internet business. Looks can be deceiving and frustrating, very frustrating. The list of things to do never stops with an online business and it takes a long time to establish that internet empire. If we didn’t have an existing business we would have been broke a while ago.

The only ones making money on the internet seem to be people telling you how easy it is to make a million dollars online. There are so many scams that it becomes frustrating trying to do an honest business online. When all is said and done, it seems the only thing left to do is put ads on your site and make a little money to pay a few bills. That really wasn’t the plan we had in mind. We have worked hard to get traffic to our site to sell our handmade jewelry and unique gifts; we don’t want people clicking off our page to some other jewelry supplier. We want visitors to our site to become our customers. We have a 90% re-order rate with our wholesale jewelry and gifts.

Perseverance is a virtue and today I’m feeling virtuous (that doesn’t happen all that often!). I’m not ready to jump at that dangling carrot, I’m going to stick with it and keep doing whatever needs to be done to get quality customers to our site. I’m not going to give in to the lure of easy money. If we made a successful business offline, we are sure to be able to make a successful business online.

We initially went online so we didn’t have to print an 80 page catalog, the expense was killing us as we are constantly adding new products and handmade jewelry lines and revising items to make them sell faster. The website is so easy to keep up to date. We have saved a lot of money, quite a few trees and made it easier for our customers to order. Our website has done its job.

Our main source of targeted customers comes from Wholesale Jewelry and Gift Shows, but more and more we are getting inquiries from around the world because of our website. It takes a lot of time and SEO work to get the targeted traffic so don’t waste your efforts on the wrong keywords and phrases. Do your homework and you’ll get lasting results!

The effort you put into your website shows to your customers and the search engines as well. Approach it like a “real world” business and you will do well.

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When starting out in the handmade jewelry business or any business for that matter, look to the future by making sure to dot your i’s and cross all your t’s. There is no business that is immune to taxes so make sure all your books are in order from the start.

The best way to ensure that all the tax rules and regulations are being followed is to get your business a chartered accountant. They are more knowledgeable on tax matters and the required government paperwork. Although chartered accountants can be quite expensive it is an investment in a happy future.

Purchase a business accounting program. Everything may be easy to keep track of now but when your business grows it is too easy to forget important dates and information. We used to spend many hours every month trying to input invoices and amounts. With accounting programs everything is kept up to date and reminders such as due dates just pop up in front of you. This is a time saver and well worth the small investment.

Get a bookkeeper! Right from the start is much easier as there won’t be a backlog of transactions to input. Make sure to go with the accounting program that your bookkeeper is familiar with, just to lessen any learning curve. Everything will be input in the proper account and all bills and receipts will be reconciled at the end of every month.

Make sure your accounting is up to date. Make all payments and returns ready early, missed payments or late payments are red flags to the tax people. They see these as your inability to keep track of important information. If the tax people are continually seeing your business name next to red flags it won’t be long before they pay you a visit. No one is ever happy to see them at their door.

The tax people are becoming more diligent in tracking down home-based small business. Sometimes I think we all have a big bull’s eye on our forehead. It seems everyone you talk to has had a run in with the government, though few readily admit it. It feels like it’s only a matter of time. Make sure you are ready, better safe than sorry.

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If you make handmade jewelry or have a retail store that sells handcrafted artisan jewelry you need to be online! With millions of handmade jewelry websites how do you get your product seen online? It’s not going to be easy and it takes a lot of hard work, not to mention time. If you pay someone to get you to the first page it’s going to cost you. If you do it yourself it will take time, effort and a lot of reading, but it will be worth it and its kind of fun. Even though the competition is fierce, there is still room at the top if you want to play the online marketing game. Let’s play!

So where do you start? The first thing you will need to do is take great pictures of your handmade jewelry. “A picture is worth a thousand words” or not. Make sure the photos are in focus clearly showing your design. Don’t put jewelry on a rock or a hunk of wood, although it is very natural and artsy, it is too hard for people to make out in the seconds you have to catch their attention online. Your handmade jewelry should be on a plain background so it stands out clearly.

Now you need a website, if you’re just starting there are lots of free blogs out there. I prefer the WordPress.com, mostly because it’s easy and has lots of plug-ins to do all the SEO work for you. Once you are up and running you can invest more into the site but we are trying to save some money and do it all for free, for now.

Read, read and read more; you can never have too much information. The web is filled with great information; every time you see something new do a search until you understand what it means. SEO is the most important part of getting good search engine rankings. Make sure to have meta title, description and keywords tags. Don’t forget image alt attributes as well. Do your keyword research and write it into your content.

Off-site SEO factors means links to your site. This is probably the hardest and most time consuming because you need to get related sites to link to you. Make sure your site is ready and has good content that other sites will want to link to. Stick with it and bit by bit links will come. Check other related sites link pages to get more links. Make sure you have your target keywords in you link information.

Do all these things then continually read and update your site as you go; this is a continuing process always needing to be tweaked. Check your statistics to see what is working and what isn’t. Change the things that aren’t working.

Time is also an important factor. Everything takes time so try not to get frustrated when things don’t happen overnight. Patience is a necessary virtue in wholesale handmade jewelry and online marketing. Good luck to you in all your online marketing efforts!

Wholesale Jewelry-Handcrafted barrettes-Handmade hairclips-Hummingbird jewelry

If you have a retail store or boutique these days you have to stand out from the crowd. With so many products available, providing handmade jewelry and unique gift ideas for your customers makes your store stand out and people take notice. Variety is the key to great sales. Provide your customers a wide range of styles, shapes, colors and prices. Offer a choice of materials; stones, beads, shells, resins and metals. You will find that casual sales become repeat customers if you select a great variety of unique handcrafted jewelry and gifts that will suit everyones personal style! Aim to give your customers an unique shopping experience, unusual high quality products and excellent personal service.

Where do you find suppliers for wholesale handmade jewelry and gifts? You have lots of choices but obviously the easiest and fastest way would be online. Just Google or Yahoo! search “wholesale handmade jewelry” to find suppliers for your store, can’t get much easier than that! You can also search “handmade jewelry directories”, most web directories even have a separate section for unique handmade jewelry. You can search anywhere, anytime; whenever it is convenient for you. Today you can find everything you need online without all the expenses of attending the traditional Wholesale Jewelry and Gift Shows. Everyone has a contact us page so you can ask any questions you may have if its not already in the FAQ. Online companies try to give you as much information about their products as they can. This is hard to absorb in the hustle and bustle of shows but comes naturally when you are relaxed and interested in the product. You will know the special features and techniques used to make the handmade jewelry and gifts. This information will help you to sell the products better.

If you are more a hands-on type, wholesale jewelry and gift shows are the next best option. At these shows you will see the actual products but attending these shows can be quite costly, tiring and they are only held at certain times of the year. The wide range of products available might overwhelm first time buyers but you’ll quickly learn how to narrow your search to find the items you want to see. You may just find that you can sell the handcrafted products better when you have made a connection with a real person. Pay attention to how they sell their products to you and you can carry that over to when you are selling their products to your own customers. The better the personal connection with a product, the better your sales will be!

Handcrafted artisan jewelry will attract new customers to your store. Many jewelry artists have a loyal following who will seek you out in order to buy their favorite artists’ jewelry. Look to provide a range of products and prices. People generally look for that extra special piece once in a while; for anniversaries or weddings. Have some outstanding pieces for them and to draw people into your store. More reasonably priced jewelry will sell more often to more people. Pay special attention to what we call the “added value” jewelry - this is handmade jewelry that looks more expensive than it is. This is the impulse buy type of jewelry; who can say no to unique handcrafted jewelry that is affordable and you can wear it every day?

Your goal is to make your customers come back time after time to check out your great selection of handmade jewelry. Whatever the occasion handcrafted jewelry will continue to keep them coming back for more!

Horse Bracelets-Handcrafted Copper Jewelry-Handmade Bracelets-Horse Jewelry

We have been making handmade copper jewelry and gifts for almost 25 years.  We have built our company from the ground up. We started with just a small table on the street, we had a retail store, we have participated in arts and crafts shows in Canada and the United States, exhibited at wholesale jewelry and gift shows and now we are online for the entire world! There is no overnight success in business; you need to build your business step by step on a solid foundation to ensure continued success.

A lot has changed over the years but we still find that the wholesale gift shows are continuing to generate increased sales.  Exhibiting at wholesale gift shows is still the best way to get your product noticed.  Buyers from all over the country come to the gift shows looking for new products and suppliers. Even if you come away with just sales leads, they are targeted and with a few follow-up calls you will make the sale. You are showing your product to a targeted market that has been established for decades.  People go to wholesale gift shows to place orders and see your products first hand.  Even the best photos cannot sell your product as well as you can.Most wholesale buyers still find ordering online intimidating.  At wholesale gift shows buyers see the product, touch the product and time and time again they order the product.  They feel confident that they will be able to sell your products.  The sale becomes more personal in a world that every day becomes more impersonal; there is nothing better than making the sale face to face.  Buyers associate your product with you.  The relationships that you build at the gift shows will continue for many years.  We have found that many of our new customers are referred to us by our existing customers.  There is no better compliment.

While online marketing opens the whole world for your wholesale products, it is still very important to have a continued presence at wholesale jewelry and gift shows. The majority of our orders and re-orders come directly from wholesale shows.  We continue our online efforts to support our existing customers in Canada and the United States and we are making good progress to attract our targeted market from around the world.

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How do find your inspiration for your handmade jewelry, writing your blog or just plain living? Every one finds inspiration in their own place. We look to nature and the beauty that surrounds us every single day for our handmade jewelry designs. The colors of the sea, the greens of the leaves blowing in the wind, everything around us provides us with inspiration. We have even made earring designs inspired by buildings and architecture.  There is no lack of inspiration if you just look around with an open mind. We can all be looking at the same scene but what makes an artist is that we will all see different things and create unique pieces of handcrafted artisan jewelry. I believe this is the most exciting part of the handmade jewelry process.  An open mind and observation are the key not only to making jewelry but also living life to its fullest whatever you do for a living.

But what do you do when your pool of creativity seems to have dried up? Creativity is not something that can be pushed or you just get the same old things and it feels like your going in the same circle. It’s time to take a break from your every day life; go for a walk, visit somewhere new, get away from things that cause you stress and do something fun.  You’ll be refreshed, inspired and feel a new enthusium for your work. Who knows, you might even have missed it!

Handmade Jewelry-Handcrafted Barrettes-Copper Hairclips-Butterfly Jewelry

All too often lately I am hearing of relationships failing because of the stress of having a home-based business. When you are running a business together from home you are together 24/7 and there are bound to be times when you just get on each others nerves. Add the stress of the business and wait for the explosion, it’s a time bomb waiting to happen. I start to envy people who go out to work in the morning and come home in the evening to relax and enjoy the few hours they have together. Can you remember the last time you just relaxed?

The problem is there isn’t any break from the business, work or each other. Every conversation seems to revolve around the business and usually all the things you didn’t get done instead of all the ones that did. Many people feel overwhelmed by the stress that a home-based business puts on a relationship. Many just give up and slam the door behind them. But if you’re not the type to give up quite so easily there are many little ways to improve your relationship while still running a successful business. Give some (or all) of these ideas a try:

1. Take time for yourself. An hour a day to be alone and think things through (without being told what to think!); take a walk, read a book, exercise (always the last on my list), whatever makes you feel relaxed. It will refresh your mind and soul giving you energy to climb the next mountain.

2. Take time for both of you. Dinner, a movie, dancing; preferably somewhere loud so you can’t talk about business! Get to know each other again, make a weekly date!

3. Make time for friends and family. There is nothing like seeing other people being mean to each other to make you realize how good you have it. Maybe this one is just me, but I have a big family who fights alot! I always come away from a visit thinking I am the luckiest person in the whole world!

4. Having a positive outlook makes the day go better.

5. Give credit when credit is due, not blame.

6. Never leave in the middle of a fight. Agree to disagree if all else fails.

7. Don’t dwell on the past and things you can’t change.

8. When you have a problem find a solution not fault.

9. Procrastination is our enemy, whatever the task just get it done.

10. Amazing how a hug and a kiss can make the day go better.

After 20 years of running a handmade jewelry business together our relationship is stronger than ever. We still argue and disagree often but we know we wouldn’t have it any other way. It took a while to realize that we couldn’t have done it without the other. Together we have had great success and the future looks even better. We wish you all great success in your home-based business — together.

Handmade Jewelry-Unique Copper Pins Brooches-Hummingbird Jewelry

Sometimes life throws you some punches. What makes you different is how you react to those times. As we get older our hopes, goals and dreams can change. The perfect life ten years ago may no longer apply to your present situation. Fortunately, you can change everything if you have the courage!

Ten years ago nothing was more important than building our wholesale handmade jewelry business, a legacy for our children. We spent night and day working, blinders on, seemingly unaware of the world around us. We focused on our goal so completely that there was no time for friends or family. We were on our own just trying to get everything done on schedule. All in all we were quite successful but something was missing.

One day we woke up and the enthusiasm was gone, we were tired of the stress of our dream. So we decided that the dream needed revising. After much conversation, not to mention a little too much wine, we came up with a new plan. We were going to change everything; we were going to begin living the life we always wanted.

We packed up the house and the kids and we moved far, far away. At times it seems like a fairy tale! We live by the sea; we go for long walks and spend entire days at the beach. We take drives along the coast and the views take our breath away, it is a truly enchanted life; a dream come true!

We still work on the handmade jewelry business but we are a lot more relaxed about it. Now we are focused on our website and new designs for our handmade jewelry and unique gifts instead of the day to day running of the business. The wholesale jewelry business is now working for us instead of us being the slave of the business. We feel like we’re the ones calling the shots now. The world is our oyster and we are hungry!

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After years in the basement working hard on our wholesale jewelry business with blinders on, we are now trying to work smart. Online marketing is the business of choice for many people who want to work for themselves. They want to do what they want, when they want to do it. And the best part is you can do it wherever you want. You can be in your garage or your basement or living by the sea; it absolutely doesn’t matter! What does matter is to make money your website has to be found by the right people.

Whether you are blogging and collecting money from affiliate marketing or actually have a product to sell makes no difference, your website must attract the right target market. Online marketing is not any different than marketing 101, just more complicated! Instead of marketing a product you are now marketing your website. Is doesn’t matter if you make the best product in the world if no one can find it!

When we made our first website a few years ago, we sat down with a website designer and he made the website just how we wanted it. We were busy with our wholesale handmade jewelry business and didn’t focus on the website, it was just there. We had invested money but not time to understand how to make the website work for us. It was like printing business cards before you know what you are going to sell, pointless.

In the last six months we have devoted a great deal of time to learn about internet marketing and to develop our website. It takes a lot of time, but research is the key to success. Knowing your target market and creating a marketing strategy are very important. This is not an overnight process; it takes time to find out what works and doesn’t work. It is a work in progress; every day we learn something new and try to apply it to our situation.

Six months ago you couldn’t find our website unless you typed in our URL. Now we are in the top ten for several of our keyword phrases and seeing improvement every day for the more competitive phrases. Every day we get inquiries about our handmade jewelry and unique gift ideas.The world is slowly opening up to our website and the future is looking fabulous!