Image via CrunchBase

If you read our recent article titled, “Social Shopping Websites,” then you are aware of the benefits of social shopping.  Imagine you are a shopper looking for the perfect pair of diamond jewelry earrings to add to your fine jewelry collection.  You could drop the key phrase: “diamond jewelry earrings” into Google and start sifting through the thousands of sites that pop up in their search results, spend hours on random websites researching and comparing quality, pricing, and customer service reputation, or you could head to a social shopping site like Kaboodle and save a lot of time by reading the reviews from your fellow social shoppers.  Social shopping is a new way for consumers to gather information and rate products that they want to purchase, or have purchased.  It takes the guesswork out of Internet shopping, and because it is easier that using search engines and can provide more accurate results, it is no doubt the future of e-commerce.  Today we will explain ways that you can harness social shopping sites to help promote your jewelry website.

Jewelry websites have an advantage over other products in terms of marketing through social shopping sites; these sites are generally related to the fashion industry.  The most popular social shopping sites which focus on the fashion industry include: Polyvore, Kaboodle, and ThisNext.  There are two major benefits for you as a jewelry storeowner to utilize these three sites and others like them.  First, you can gain insight into the wants and desires of your potential clients, and second you can market your products to those most likely to buy them.

First, create your own social shopping profiles to research your clients. On these sites, users create personal profiles that afford various ways to engage in social shopping with their friends.  They can create wish lists which itemize all the clothing and accessories they long to have; they can create style profiles which detail some of their favorite items and how to coordinate them; they can highlight specific products or trends that they find interesting and want to share. By examining the choices users make with these various social shopping site features, you can get a good read on the types of jewelry your clients want.

Second, create your own profiles so you can showcase your work to a targeted group of people.  Through your various social shopping profiles you can market your own jewelry website.  The friends that you gather will have access to the items you add to your wish lists, style profiles, and product alerts.  For example, you could create an entire look complete with jewelry from your own website.  This shows your potential clients ways they can coordinate your jewelry with various outfits.  Those who want the new Juicy Couture jump suit can see how great it looks paired with your gold hoop earrings.  You can also create pairings of your products and show potential clients which earrings match which bracelets, and so forth.  Be creative with your combinations and show the social shoppers out there all the benefits of owning your jewelry.

Encourage your friends and clients to showcase your products in their profiles.  This is another great way that the people close to you can help your jewelry website succeed.  You do not have to be the only social shopper promoting your jewelry; your friends can do it too.  Encourage them to use your products when possible in the various wish lists, style profiles, and product promotions that they create.  The more buzz about your jewelry, the better!  Need more tips on marketing your site?  Contact Websites for Jewelers today!

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• 7 Social Shopping Sites that worth your time (seoservicesgroup.com)
• Why Facebook Could Dominate the Next Generation of Ecommerce (jagdidit.com)
• Nordstrom Buys Social Shopping Site HauteLook (webguild.org)
• Kaboodle’s Chief Marketing Officer Talks Social Shopping [Interview] (socialtimes.com)

Has your website support team been hounding you to get active on the social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter?  ‘Social Media Marketing’ is a huge buzz phrase in the world of Internet marketing, and it is not going away any time soon.  While you have certainly heard the phrase, you may be unclear about what Social Media actually is and how it can help you promote your jewelry website? First, a social networking site, as defined by Wikipedia is: “an online service, platform, or site that focuses on building and reflecting of social networks or social relations among people, e.g., who share interests and/or activities.”  Social media marketing is when businesses use these social networking sites to increase their bottom line, and this can be a very effective way for jewelry websites to market themselves.

First lets start with a few statistics on this thing we call Social Networking sourced through Web Strategist:

-       75% of all the people on the Internet use social networking sites, which have increased 24% over the last year.

-       This past July Facebook reached 500 million users

-       People Tweet 600 times per second, reaching about 50 million Tweets per day

-       Facebook was the most visited site in 2010, surpassing Google.

-       A report from Airwide Solutions predicts that Social Networking will be a more popular method of communication than phone calls or text messages by 2015.

-       Social networking sites account for half of all the mobile Internet usage.

-       75% of business owners plan to make social networking a big part of their marketing strategy in 2011.

Image via Wikipedia

When marketing your jewelry website, you want to reach as many people as possible in the shortest length of time.  As you can see by these stats, social networking websites have become the fastest way to reach the most internet users, making this an excellent avenue for Internet marketing.  Not only are Facebook, MySpace and other social networking sites excellent places to reach potential customers, theses sites are also excellent places to find paying customers.  Research has shown that hits to web sites via Facebook are actually more likely to turn into a sale.  Experts predict this is due largely to the fact that Facebook users are more engaged and the information they find while on a social networking site is more relevant to their wants and needs.  Because social networking sites have become experts at customizing information for each user, a client arriving to your jewelry website via a social networking site typically has more interest than one that may arrive via a search engine.

If you have not considered developing a Facebook page, participating in social bookmarking through Del.icio.us, engaging in the professional community of LinkedIn, or creating your own business reference page at Wikipedia, then make these goals for 2011.  If you have serious doubts about your technical skills or time in terms of social media marketing, contact Websites for Jewelers to handle the load for you.  We offer several levels of Internet marketing services and can customize a plan for your business’s unique needs.

Related articles

• Who Likes What: Social Media By Demographic (kissmetrics.com)
• Proof That Social Media Marketing Actually Works (businessinsider.com)
• The Opportunites Offered By Social Networking Sites To Businesses (ronmedlin.com)
• State of the Web 2010: E-Commerce Rebounds, Facebook Rises, Online Video Booms (gigaom.com)
• Marketing Strategies for Online Business (thinkup.waldenu.edu)
• E-Mail Usage Plummets as Teens Turn to Mobile, Social Networking (clickz.com)

Are you thinking about selling your jewelry online? Making your jewelry available to order online does not guarantee sales. Before you venture into e-commerce, consider the following steps and facts about selling jewelry online.

1. Carefully assess your jewelry to determine whether you can in fact sell online. If your business focuses on bridal jewelry (i.e. wedding bands, engagement rings, and anniversary bands), selling online will be extremely difficult. Most bridal sales are controlled by the companies on page one of Google. Unless you either have very unique bridal jewelry or extremely low costs, your chances of selling online are quite low.
2. You will need a page one listing in Google. Forget about trying to obtain a page one listing in Google under generic terms (e.g. wedding rings, engagement rings, diamond rings, etc.). I can assure you that it is just about impossible to get a page one listing in Google at this point under these types of terms. However, you can find opportunities under what is referred to as “long tail” search terms. A long tail search term is a very specific term. For example, instead of trying to achieve a page one listing in Google for “wedding rings”, you have the possibility to get a page one listing under terms such as “hand engraved 14k yellow gold wedding rings” and “handmade 14k yellow gold wedding rings”. There is still quite a lot of competition under these terms. However, you can in fact get a page one listing in Google if you follow the right steps.
3. An e-commerce enabled site requires literally daily maintenance. On a daily basis, you will need to add new products, update the descriptions, bring focus to new jewelry and items on sale, contribute to your blog, contribute to your Facebook page, make sure that your sitemaps are getting properly fed and indexed by Google, Yahoo and Bing, check your Google Webmaster Tools account for any issues being identified by Google, correct the issues that are identified, and so much more. If you think that you can just build an e-commerce website and let it run itself, you are mistaken.

There are many instances where a jeweler should not endeavor to sell online. Instead, they should focus on attracting local customers, via their website, and entice them to visit their jewelry store. Many stores have far better success foregoing the e-commerce venture and focusing in on local foot traffic. If you are unsure which direction to head in, please feel free to contact Websites for Jewelers for an open discussion and evaluation.

Related articles

• How to Start an Online Store (brighthub.com)

Have you heard of the mobile web? If you have a jewelry website, you should know about this hot trend in e-commerce appropriately titled, m-commerce!  Perhaps you know all about the mobile web, but didn’t even realize it.  As defined in Wikipedia, the mobile web is used when people access the Internet via mobile devices, such as a Smartphone or tablet PC.  Since 2007, mobile web services have been expanding, thanks in part to the increased number of Smartphones and decreased cost of mobile web service.  In 2008 mobile web access actually surpassed computer based internet access, and today, most everyone has Internet access via his or her mobile phones.

Recently, National Jeweler released an article titled, “Study: More Consumers Checking email by Phone,” where they discuss the increased use of the mobile web.  According to their report, a new study from comScore (an internet marketing research company that tracks all internet data on its surveyed computers in order to study online behavior), while web-based email is declining (6 percent down in 2010), the number of people checking their email via a Smartphone or tablet PC has skyrocketed by 36%.

ComScore Senior VP Mark Donovan reported, “From PCs to mobile devices, whether its email, social media, IM or texting, consumers have many ways to communicate and can do so at any time and in any place. The decline in Web-based email is a byproduct of these shifting dynamics and the increasing availability of on-demand communication options.”

Why does Websites for Jewelers care about the mobile web?  In addition to more and more users accessing their email with mobile devices, studies also show that more and more consumers also are shopping via this way.  Many big name jewelry websites have created mobile web sites that function better than a standard website would on a Smartphone or iPad.  In addition, big retailers are also releasing apps that help shoppers easily browse through their products while using Apple’s iPhone or iPad.

Last year eBay anticipated $1.5 billion in mobile sales, according to a report by the ecommerce information site, InternetRetailer.  In fact, eBay launched three new apps in order to facilitate their expected sales and to coordinate with the release of Apple’s iPad last spring.

You don’t need to be as big as eBay to take advantage of the hot m-commerce trend.  If you have a jewelry website, an app or mobile platform may be your next step, but there are a couple things that can be done to your existing site in order to maximize your mobile web sales right away.  First, make sure that your pages are simple and clean, and don’t require too much data transmission, this way your pages will load quickly on your client’s mobile device.  Second, make payment options simple and secure, so that clients don’t have to fiddle with too many screens to make a purchase.  Lastly, while your pages should be clean and simple, offer innovative features that mobile device users will find appealing.

Follow these simple steps and your jewelry website will be m-commerce friendly.

Related articles

• Mobile Email Use Jumps 40% Thanks To Smartphones (informationweek.com)
• Email access trending away from web, toward mobile (creativedepartment.com)
• Augmented reality? Mobile’s next big thing (canada.com)
• Like Everything Else, Email is Going Mobile (marketingpilgrim.com)

Sure, brick and mortar jewelry stores will certainly be around for years to come, but studies show that more and more shoppers are browsing not among your glass cases, but on the World Wide Web instead.

According to a study released by Spending Pulse, a report from MasterCard, this past holiday season saw online shopping increase by a whopping fifteen percent!  This was in fact, the busiest online shopping season EVER, seeing shoppers spend roughly $36 billion between October 31^st and December 24^th.

Let’s face it, electronic commerce has EXPLODED!  And why not?  What is better than shopping from the comfort of your own home?

Even those who are not interested in selling jewelry online and prefer the face-to-face interaction with their clients must take advantage of electronic commerce as a marketing tool.  Many high-end jewelers are using the web to showcase their product and increase awareness of their brand.

Take for example, the websites of luxury jewelers JB Star and William Goldberg.  While you cannot purchase their pieces directly online, they are reaching more potential clients by placing stunning images of their jewelry on their websites for the world to view.  These images, along with their blogging practices and SEO techniques, have drastically increased the awareness of their brand.

Luxury jewelry retailer Bulgari has also seen the advantages of increasing their web presence.  They have recently teamed up with software developers to create 3D interactive applications for Apple products iPhone and iPad, which allows their customers to fully explore how it would be to own and wear one of their Magsonic watches, through high resolution images and consumer interaction.

Today’s consumers are tech savvy and they will even check out a jeweler’s website BEFORE stopping by to browse in person.  It is most likely that those of you with the most online visitors will also see the most in person visitors as well.

If you want to catch the fast speeding train of ecommerce and are considering increasing your web presence or selling jewelry online, here are some of the benefits you can expect:

-       Your Store is Always Open:

This past Christmas Eve, after all the stores closed, retailers saw an incredible increase of 42% of online shoppers.  When you have an online store, or even market your products online, your clients can shop all hours of the day, every day of the year.  While you are vacationing with your family or snoozing away, thousands can be browsing your products.

-       Extremely Low Overhead

If you decide to try exclusively selling jewelry online, you won’t have the need for a store, or many employees.  Unlike a web business, in order to run a brick and mortar jewelry store you must pay sales people, maintenance people, and high rental fees.  Neither of these is necessary when your jewelry case becomes a computer monitor, and you can save loads of money.

-       Less Hassle

Brick and mortar stores don’t just cost more money than an online store, but they take more looking after as well.  Landlords, property taxes, leaky roofs, and interior design issues all disappear with an online store.

-       Freedom

When selling jewelry online, you can check in on your store from anywhere you find WiFi, and you never have to worry about who will open and close the doors each night.

-       Inexpensive Marketing

A television commercial, magazine ad, or mailer can never give you the broad reach of the internet, and at a much lower cost!  A website afford you all the ad space you need to truly market your products.

Related articles

• Samuels Jewelers Launches All New E-Commerce Website (prweb.com)
• Rogers Jewelers Launches All New E-Commerce Portal to Enhance Customer Satisfaction (prweb.com)