Why Jewelry Retailers Really Need to Get Online
by Carrie Hinkel on April 21st, 2008
If you are a retailer selling jewelry and you don’t have a website, you could easily be missing out on doubling your sales revenue! Successful online retailers like Ross-Simons , Helzberg Diamonds , and Kay Jewelers have all figured out that having a retail website allows them to reach customers that their retail stores or catalogs never would have allowed them to. Web sales have become such a big part of Ross-Simons revenue, that they now account 50 percent of the company’s sales.
Online research statistics show that a large percentage of younger buyers are doing the majority of their retail shopping online. Even many older shoppers are doing a substantial amount of shopping via websites. And, with jewelry and especially diamonds, shoppers are using the web to do their research, which many times leads them right to a retailer’s website.
Top 5 Reasons to get your jewelry sales online
It’s easy – Nowadays, getting your website online is a cinch. Companies like Yahoo! make building a website and setting up a merchant account so easy that you can even do it yourself. Of course, if you want interactive tools like diamond comparison charts or a jewelry photo gallery, you might want to enlist the help of a web designer.
It’s inexpensive – For less than a few hundred bucks a year, you can have a website and a merchant account set up for your company. If hearing others talk about $50,000 or $100,000 websites has turned you off from the online world in the past, don’t let it now. It’s true, huge, ultra-complicated websites with databases and dedicated servers can cost that much, but that doesn’t mean yours has to.
It can increase your customer base – While a local retail store has a typically thirty-mile radius of customers to draw from, a website has no vicinity limit. You can take orders from anyone, in any part of the world.
It can increase your average purchase size – Web sites are a great way to use various marketing promotions like cross-sells and up-sells to entice customers to buy more. Having a web site will allow you to test various offers in order to see what your customers respond to.
It can bring more customers into your retail store – Many online jewelers use their website as a way for customers to pay a “pre visit” to their store. Then, if they see a piece of jewelry they like, customers can set an appointment to see it at the retail store. Instead of potential customers assuming you don’t carry a certain piece or line, now they can see it on your website and then see it in person – all without wasting any time.
Before creating your retail website, it would be a good idea to take a look at your competitors’ websites to see what types of tools and features they are using. Also, most successful jewelers’ websites include a great deal of information for customers – so they can learn about jewelry in general, and about the specific pieces being sold.