If you are wondering how to start a jewelry business as a teenager, you have come to the right place at the right time. It is the perfect time to start a jewelry business as the global jewelry market amounted to about 230 billion US dollars in 2020 and is expected to reach 292 billion dollars by 2025. However, starting an online jewelry business can be a really time-consuming task, while starting out. Thankfully, as a teenager, you do have an amazing gift of TIME. This article is specially geared towards teenagers and young adults, who don’t have enough capital, business knowledge, experience, or contacts. Without further ado, let’s get started on this step-by-step guide on how to start a jewelry business as a teenager.
How much does it cost to start a jewelry business as a teenager?
In order to start a jewelry business as a teenager, you will need anywhere from $1000 to up to $2000. I have broken down all the basic costs related to starting a jewelry business below:
- Domain Name -> Starting from $0.99 for first year
- Shopify Plan -> 14-day free trial, $29/mo onward
- Inventory -> $300 – $500
- Influencer Marketing -> $200 – $400
- Facebook and TikTok Ads -> $300
This is just a basic breakdown, there may be some other expenses like registering your business or custom packaging your products. Of course, having a higher capital helps to elevate the growth faster, but we have case studies of our own clients who started online businesses with less than $1000 and scaled it to a 7-figure business within a year. The lesson from this is that the only way to launch a successful jewelry business is to get started and the only way to get started is to quit talking and start doing.
Pros and cons of starting a jewelry business as a teenager?
Prior to starting a business as a teenager, you will need to understand the pros and cons of this business model. After all, you wouldn’t want to jump into a business model without an unbiased assessment of its advantage and disadvantages.
| Pros | Cons |
| Flexibility | Highly Competitive |
| Low barrier of entry | Finding the right supplier is not easy |
| Highly profitable and scalable | Needs extensive marketing knowledge while scaling |
| Growing Industry | Need to deal with a lot of returns and refunds |
As you can see, starting a jewelry business has its own set of pros and cons. However, if you analyze them you will see the pros clearly outweighing the cons.
Feel like the jewelry business is not for you? Here are some other business ideas that may interest you:
- Starting a Skincare Line with no money
- Dropservicing Business
- Starting a Clothing Business as a Teenager
- Leggings Business
- Starting an Online Boutique with no money
5 Steps To Start A Successful Jewelry Business As A Teenager
With the basic overview of the jewelry business out of our way, let’s now get into the exact 5 steps you need to follow in order to start your own jewelry business as a teenager.
1. Define A Business Strategy
Running a successful jewelry business as a teenager requires a strategy. Without an actionable strategy, you will be running around like a headless chicken. I would highly suggest you take a piece of paper and write down all your strategies to market and operate a jewelry business as a teenager. You will need to make sure to perform market and demographic research and include them in your plan. This document should act as a business plan for your jewelry business. Your business plan does not need to be a fixed document. You can always update it as you learn new things and explore new opportunities.
Choosing a Niche
Your first phase of defining a business strategy should be choosing a niche. The jewelry industry is huge and it has a lot of competition. As a teenager, your natural instinct is trying to be as broad as possible to serve a bigger customer base. But that is not the right way to go. You need to pick a small but less competitive niche and excel in that niche before including new niches in your business.
Some of the most popular jewelry niches are listed below:
- Handmade Jewelry
- Affordable Fashion Jewelry
- Couple Jewelry
- Customized Jewelry
- Luxury Jewelry
Identifying your potential customer
Identifying your potential customers will help target your marketing campaigns better. After all, you would want to acquire a customer with the least amount of money spent. Therefore, you should not waste any money on marketing to someone who is not likely to be your customer. Identification of your potential customer will largely depend upon the niche you choose. For example, if you are selling luxury jewelry items, your target audience is wealthy individuals. However, if you are selling jewelry items for couples, your target audience can be wealthy or middle class but needs to be in a relationship or married.
2. Register Your Jewelry Business
If you just want to try out this business idea or want to start on a small scale, registering your business is not essential. You can operate as a sole proprietorship structure. However, if your jewelry business does well and you want to scale it quickly, registering the business as an LLC will have a lot of benefits as it unlocks the ability for you to open business bank accounts, enter into contracts, hire employees, and get business licenses and permits.
Out of many business structures available, the best option for a small and growing business is an LLC. Registering an LLC will protect your personal assets from lawsuits and bankruptcy. Although the protection is not fully-proof, it is significantly better than a sole proprietorship. Once you register your business, the next step is getting an EIN through the IRS website. EIN is a 9-digit number provided by the government to all businesses in order to identify them as tax-paying entities. You will need an EIN while filing taxes, hiring employees, or opening a business bank account.
Starting an LLC is really simple through LegalZoom. Their pricing plans start at just $79 (plus filing fees), and you can add more services as you go.
3. Source Your Jewelry
One of the toughest tasks while operating an online business is finding the right supplier. The way you source your jewelry can have a massive impact on your business. If you are looking to follow the dropshipping model for your jewelry business AliExpress is simply the best choice. However, if you want to order the jewelry in bulk, you can choose any of the following suppliers and/or wholesalers :
- Alibaba (Global)
- US Jewelry House (USA)
- CME Jewellery (UK)
- Amaya (Australia)
Bear in mind, a lot of these wholesalers and manufacturers will have a minimum order quantity(MOQ) in place. Therefore, before ordering your inventory, make sure to ask for a sample piece to inspect the quality of the jewelry.
Furthermore, I will suggest you not spend more than $500 on the inventory while starting. This way you will not feel the pressure of clearing your stock and can focus solely on the business side of things.
4. Create An Online Store
There are two things you’ll need in order to sell your jewelry online. They are a domain name and a Shopify plan.
You can register your domain name online from Namecheap for as low as $0.99/yr. If you have already decided on the name of your jewelry business, make sure to use the tool below and check if the domain name is still available. I would suggest registering and booking your domain name quickly because If someone else registers your domain name before you, you’ll need to pay a premium price to make it yours.
Find a domain starting at $0.88
powered by Namecheap
Another thing you will need is a Shopify subscription. It is one of the best tools for creating an online store. Whether you are starting an activewear business or a denim line, Shopify helps to create a platform for selling your products online. The price for a Shopify plan starts from $29, and believe me it is worth every penny.
Shopify also offers a 14-day free trial (no credit card needed). This is perfect for anyone who wants to get a feel for this awesome tool before committing themselves. Create an account in Shopify for completely free and play around with it. It is, simply, the best drag and drop tool to create an online store for your jewelry business.
Once you have your online store up and ready, the next task is to connect the domain you registered from Namecheap to your Shopify account. You can do this connection easily through the Domains section in your Shopify Dashboard. Once the connection is done, your online store is ready for marketing and taking orders.
If you want any professional help in creating an online store for your jewelry business, please contact us through the contact form. We will get back to you with resources, suggestions, and help within an hour.
5. Create A Marketing Strategy
Once you set up your online store to sell the jewelry online, the next task is acquiring customers. One thing to keep in mind is that people are constantly looking to buy jewelry online, however, the issue is bringing them to your website, and converting them to a customer is tough. Marketing and advertising your business among potential customers will not only help you resolve this issue but provide two important benefits. One of them is getting much-needed exposure and the other benefit is that it creates a brand and a following for your business.
Since your jewelry business is predominantly going to be online, digital marketing will play a crucial role in your business. I like to sub-divide digital marketing into two channels and implement a mixture of both into my marketing strategy.
I. Organic Channels :
Organic channels include marketing strategies that are completely free. The problem with these channels, however, is that they don’t produce instant results. SEO(Search engine optimization) and social media management are two of the biggest form of marketing through organic channels.
Bear in mind, social media is the soul of a jewelry business. Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, etc. are great places to reach your customers organically. Moreover, you can use it to keep your current customers up-to-date, or as a tool for attracting new customers. Therefore, make sure you religiously post on your social accounts and engage with your followers regularly. This will create a long-lasting relationship with your customers, which means they will come back to your store whenever they need a new jewelry.
II. Paid Channels :
Paid digital advertisements, on the other hand, requires you to spend money but produce an instant result. These channels have the ability to target audiences within a certain demographic and region, which can be a brilliant tool for your jewelry business. You may want to consider running paid ads through services such as Facebook Ads, Yelp, or Google AdWords. The best thing about paid channels is that – they generate results quickly which, in turn, helps to scale your business both vertically and horizontally.
You may also consider some other popular forms of paid channels such as affiliate marketing or running newsletters. You can sign up for a free account at Mailchimp, and start collecting emails of potential customers starting today. The best strategy to collect emails is to offer your visitors a discount coupon if they sign up for your newsletter. Alongside, you can also start an affiliate marketing program, where you give your customers an incentive to recommend you to their friends and family and reward each successful referral.
