I'm having growing pains. This is really brutal on an old brain, the most difficult and mind bending thing I’ve ever attempted. This year I’m going back to doing business old school; I’m taking my jewelry business on the road. I’m doing this for many reasons. The biggest reason is I want my customers to see my jewelry in person. Because there’s so much competition today, the odds of being seen on the web is very small, unless you’re willing to pay.
My business is set up for two sales channels, retail and wholesale. I love selling retail and making custom jewelry, but the material, labor and overhead makes the price too expensive for most, making it next to impossible to make a profit.
I decided last year to do something different, selling wholesale. I need to expand my product line by designing and making multiple pieces tailored to the boutique market.
I want to be able to offer semi-custom jewelry to privately owned boutiques. Every one of them I’ve been in offer costume jewelry that can be purchased at Wal-Mart and Target, all made in China. They should be selling products “Made in the USA.” The shop owners ask you to purchase from local small businesses, so they should to do the same. The products they sell should also come from a local source. I believe this is a selling point that they could present to their customers. I know I can provide them beautiful artisan jewelry that’s designed to fit their customer base.
The problems I need to solve are big, so I need the latest tech to make it happen. I need to be able to make mobile presentations and sales.
I started with the new iPhone10 because of its camera, memory, and the operating system that’s compatible with the devices that I need to make it possible.
The platforms I need to be on are Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook and my own website. I found that Wix was the best fit for me to sell on line. It serves many functions for me: web store, gallery, blog, inventory and sales tracking and reports. Wix links with all of my accounts.
My web store is designed to be used by my customers on computers or cell phones.
One feature I love is that my phone can be used for point of sale to take credit cards everywhere. It also links with my Square point of sale system that can be mobile or as a business with a cash drawer taking credit cards and cash. All of the software I use is cloud based. I can do business from anywhere because I have a cellular Bluetooth hot spot. All of my systems are battery powered and can connect direct to WiFi or by Bluetooth though my cellular Hotspot.
This is just a start and it will be tweaked and changed as I run into many unexpected problems.
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