I'm considering starting up an online store to list some of my jewelry, but not for a few months. Does anyone out there have any advice or best practices to offer when developing and communicating your store policies to your buyers? Any suggestions that have helped you avoid bad experiences with buyers? Anything else tricky that a newbie should be on the lookout for?

Research... research and more research!

Jewelry is such a competitve market.

Whatever you do - do not open an eBay store... what a waste of time and money!

Good luck!

i agree that don't open an ebay store..but try Etsy..like i did =)

 

http://applebeadshop.etsy.com

I was on etsy for a while and did not sell anything.  How do you get exposure on that type of site when there are so many people selling items very similar to your own.?

 

I have an Etsy shop http://nghdesigns.etsy.com.  I've had modest success there, but am glad it isn't how we keep the roof over our heads.  I spend a lot of time on the forums, tho I don't think it's led to any sales.  My sales have either come from my items being discovered by total strangers searching for something specific, or thru my promoting to family & friends.  Each time I check out the jewelry category, as a whole, I can't help but think the world just doesn't need that much handcrafted jewelry.  Probably not the thing to mention on a bead magazine sponsored forum, but...  Nor does that keep me from conceiving new ideas, but in the grand scheme of things?

I agree that you need to do a lot of research so that you'll know what will work best for you.  It took time for me to have the guts to sell online.  Most of the information I read and hear are nice success stories and you don't really get to know the dark side of it.  Having this survey is a good way to start.  You can also join clubs, network with other beaders, check out blogs, etc.  I've been selling through ebay.ph for the past 2 years and I'm happy with it.  I've encountered a few bad experiences with bogus bidders but I always maintain a policy to ship the items only upon confirmation of payment.  They may not fully close the transaction but I still have the items with me for relisting.  All in all, the successful transactions greatly outweigh the bad.  Hope your beading journey will be meaningful as well.

-Bel (sunfield45)

I've had an etsy shop for about a year now, with modest success. I also opened and subsequenly closed a shop on Ruby Lane. I've blogged about my Ruby Lane experience here

http://shinyadornments.com/wordpress/?p=179

 

Good luck to you!

Sherry wrote a blog post on my askszarka blog about etsy versus ebay if you would like to read her perspective http://askszarka.blogspot.com/2008/06/etsy-versus-ebay.html

If you click on the Ask Szarka heading once you are done you will be take to the first page of the blog. There are many articles about the jewelry trade writen by four of us. http://askszarka.blogspot.com/

Szarka