The trick to beginning any business is to actually begin. The first few steps are the hardest. So many people have terrific business ideas that they never implement. Once you overcome inertia, the business will seem to take on a life of its own.
Selling items online has become fairly easy these days and pretty convenient. There are strictly online companies who sell items on the internet only. If you want to set up a store to sell jewelry there are important things to remember. While some people are still leery of buying items online, you will want your store to have a secure website in which the customer can feel protected when making a transaction online. Before you get this far you will need to purchase a domain name for your online store, which is the first step of the five easy steps to set up an online jewelry store.

Step 1. Select a jewelry store name and domain name.

This step is difficult and extremely important. You should select a name for your online jewelry store that is easily remembered. It should be catchy. Do you want your jewelry store to be elegant or perhaps trendy? The name will set a tone for your business. The corresponding URL should be easy to remember. I would avoid using hyphens or underscores in the URL since they are hard to remember. Register all reasonable variations of the name that you selected for a one year period. You can always renew them next year. This will protect you from potential cyber-squatters in the future.

Step 2. Select a service to host your Website.

There are many services out there with many different price structures like Go Daddy, Doteasy, HostPapa, HostGator, and Frynge. Check at least three references before proceeding with any service. Look at the sites they maintain. Are their customers satisfied? Do they have good customer service if you have problems? Are the sites operating properly? Are the sites up and running all the time? Are there periods when your site may not be online due to system problems?

Step 3. Design your website.

If you can design your own site there are many software programs available like Adobe Dreamweaver, WebEasy, Web Studio, and WebPlus. Some of them are excellent, but they are also very complex. An easier alternative is to use content management system like Joomla, WordPress, Drupal, Mambo, and PHP-Nuke. If you are able to do this yourself you can save a great deal of money. However, if you don't set the site up properly it will not be indexed by the major search engines. Your internet search traffic could be negatively affected by mistakes. So, if you don't feel comfortable doing this yourself then a web designer would be appropriate. They can be found online. Again, check references and ask to see other sites that they designed before making a commitment. Make sure they are aware of good search engine optimization techniques.

Step 4. Upload your jewelry products.

Once you have an online jewelry store you must be sure and include a large base of photos of inventory. You will want to be sure and take pictures of your handmade jewelry pieces that you wish to sell and always have extra on hand. Some sellers may not have a lot of pieces in their inventory yet, but the inventory will become larger over time when there is demand for it. Building your online store over time includes creating a nice website layout with your inventory consistently updated. You can build your own clientele through the pictures alone. For each jewelry product that you upload, specify your product details like description, color, material, measurements, and set the price. Because it will be an online store you will have to charge for shipping. Reasonable shipping rates should apply as the customers don’t want to overpay for jewelry they could find in a regular store. It is also important to provide unique items that may not be available in all stores. Competition on the retail side can be rough so you want your customers to know that you are very customer oriented.

Step 5. Add other site content.

It is important to add other content to your site besides your handmade jewelry products. You will need a contact page, so your clients can get easily in touch with you. You may want to include a bit of biography about your online store for jewelry, as most customers want to associate jewelry they are buying on a personal level.  Your site visitors might have many other questions that won’t relate to individual product descriptions.  Questions like, do you repair broken jewelry, do you take custom orders, do you sell your jewelry anywhere else besides online, and etc. can be easily answered ahead of time on a FAQ’s page.

Of course there are many more steps to building your online jewelry store. But if you get through the beginning first five steps the momentum will build and you will be on your way. Over time you can really build your store creating a nice demand base and being very successful. The ideas that you have pondered for so long will finally begin to exist. It is a wonderful feeling. Good Luck!

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