Jewelry ecommerce websites - what works and what doesn’t

The gap between a functioning jewelry ecommerce website and a successful one is narrow but difficult to bridge. It’s like the gap between being an Olympic contender and being a medal-winner. It’s a matter of fractions and moments, but it’s so significant that we wanted to share our experience of the factors that truly superlative jewelry sites have in common and how you can achieve them for your business.

Jewelry ecommerce is big business

The claim that in 2016 more than 29 million people bought jewelry online daily is one that cannot be substantiated, but what we do know is that the global online jewelry market is predicated to grow to $30.50 billion by 2021, a compound annual growth rate of nearly 17% during this period. This makes it one of the most rapidly developing online markets in the near future. Not only is a growing industry but it’s also a lucrative one, with better margins than other sectors. This means that opportunities are high, but competition is intense.

Jewelry Ecommerce Websites - becoming an industry leader

Jewelry ecommerce is an attractive proposition for many reasons:

• It’s not gender or demographically limited - there are no limits to the potential growth of this sector.
• It’s a diverse market that offers everything from the classic rings and necklaces through to piercing jewelry, from costume jewelry at the cheapest end of the spectrum offering dollar surprize bags through to fine jewelry costing hundreds of thousands of dollars.
• Personalization is a key feature of online jewelry purchasing, whether it’s choosing a setting for a stone in a ring or having a selection of items embossed or engraved.
• It’s a sale and resale business - from fast fashion impulse buys through to vintage and retro sales right up to heirloom auctions.

But what does it take to become a leader in such a diverse industry? The basics are easy but the fine details that move a jewelry website from average to outstanding take a little longer to master and may require both expert advice from outside consultants and software that supports your ambitions and is specifically developed to work with jewelry retailing.

Appearance is everything

The design of your jewelry website is utterly crucial. Neuroscience makes clear that the human brain processes visual imagery five times faster than it does words, so the pictures on your site need to be superlatively clear, detailed and easy to navigate. The second part of website design is that subconsciously your customers will associate the way it appears with the way you do business. So your site also needs to look businesslike, sleek and efficient.

Stay on-trend

Jewelry is a rapidly moving sector and even classic items such as wedding bands and eternity rings are subject to annual variations in style - inventory needs to move at the same pace as the market, which means not only being on top of social media to be aware of trends but having mastery of your own social media so that you can demonstrate to potential customers that your jewelry website contains everything they desire.

Deepen the relationship between buyer and product

If you’ve ever bought jewelry in a store, you know there’s a fine line between being left alone to browse and being given expert advice and information to help you make your choice. Online jewelry commerce is no different - but it’s easier to design a website that contains excellent information than to train sales assistants to know when to engage and when to step back. Remember that online shoppers will only make one attempt to get questions answered - if you don’t have solid background detail for your products you may lose a sale. You can list information about materials used in the jewelry (including any potential allergens), the designer/craftsperson, policies relating to the item and even what it is about the piece that makes it something you want to sell. All this data contributes to the ‘conversion point’, the moment in which a browser becomes a customer. While calls to action are essential, it’s equally important that the relationship between buyer and product is created via providing the necessary information in an attractive format at exactly the time to begin to build the bond between customer and product that results in a sale. And remember, strong product descriptions also benefit your jewelry ecommerce website by making it rank higher in the search engines.

Consider creating niche sites

While the bread and butter of most jewelry ecommerce websites will be standard jewelry items such as rings and earrings, watches and bracelets, there’s real scope in the industry to design niche jewelry websites that capture relatively small but highly lucrative market sectors such as those who buy only black pearl jewelry or men who invest purely in watches with canvas straps - yes such sectors exist and servicing their needs gives the jewelry retailer a captive, loyal market. Of course niching doesn’t necessarily provide the turnover you need, but niched sites can be nested inside generalist jewelry ecommerce websites using themes that appeal to your niche market. To succeed at this approach you need software that will allow you to define themes for specific customer bases, and Shopping Cart Elite has unparalleled experience in theme creation - when you choose to work with SCE you get your first five themes free, giving you immediate scope to compartmentalise your purchaser experience without having to build more than one site.

Master shipping and returns

Whether or not to charge for shipping, offering next day delivery, having a returns policy, offering warranties and guarantees, especially those backed by established brands, are all decisions that the individual entrepreneur needs to make for his or herself. But what you need to be aware of is that each of these decisions will influence the way that your website is viewed by potential customers and can put you into various categories in their minds (cheap and cheerful, middle of the pack, elite and exclusive, personal and attentive … all these are possibilities) which it can be difficult to break out of. Be sure that your shipping and returns policies measure up to your ambitions for your site. It’s equally vital that your site’s architecture supports the kind of delivery process that you wish to offer. The issue of abandoned carts and/or disappointed customers whose delivery experience didn’t match the purchasing experience is commonplace.

Be the first choice - every time

We can’t pretend there isn’t a lot of competition, although it might be more accurate to describe it as churn. Online jewelry retailers come and go constantly and it’s important to find a way to stand out from the crowd. Whether you offer a color matching service for diamonds, provide fair trade jewelry, give your customers the chance to design their own diamond ring or have an unmatched range of vintage costume jewelry, it’s good to imprint yourself on your potential customer-base as being the only place to visit. Jewelry retailers can do this by:

• Running strategic social media campaigns.
• Ensuring they regularly update previous customers about enticing new inventory.
• Planning special events such as Black Friday or International Diamond Day (12 August) which can be supported by using a website theme to win customer attention.

Using a theme to win customer loyalty is best approached by using your own data to support the development of each themed page. Shopping Cart Elite allows you to see which pages every individual visitor explored, how long they spent there and what actions they took on each page. Did they seek further information about a specific jewelry item? Did they look at delivery details? Were they interested in add-on purchases? With this kind of detailed information it’s simple to design events or plan social media activity that presses the ‘buy’ buttons of your customers and brings them back to your site again and again.