New Website Idea, Need Advice.

Well my dad has had his jewlery store for about 25 years now, and since i know a little about web design I thought maybe me and him could team up and make a good website to sell jewelry. Well basically I just wanted to ask would this be a good idea with the competition and the market right now? And how long do you guys believe it will take to get started, etc. just any input u could give me would be great before i start.

 

Best advice I could say would be maybe get a proffesional to design your site, set it up as an ecommerce site if you are looking to sell online.

Add your website to business cards or some type of cards and slip them in the bags of customers you sell to daily in your store that way next time they need a quick gift maybe they will remmeber your store and search for you on the internet (i do that when i get in trouble with the wife and need to make up, we are way past the flower stage so i go right for the jewlery stores lol).

Put your domain on the bags you give the customers when they buy something

STORE NAME
www.domainname.com

and even maybe on the receipt if you can change what is printed out on that. Little things that will help customers remmeber you have an online presence will help you in the long run.

Don't expect to compete with teh big boys online for awhile, but if you do it right and market it the right way you can build yourself a nice online presence in the future and bring in a very nice income from it. Also look into some type of paid online adveritsing possibly before the holidays, mothers day, valentines day, xmas, but be careful not to spend to much on online PPC advertising as you want to make sure you are not spending all ur profits.

Hope that helped a bit
Best of luck,
Bill

 

you will need a lot of seo done in order to make your site more visable on the web. You still have a chance but i think if you hold it for a couple more years... your site will be way behind.

 

honestly you cannot do expriments with website design, a 25 year old company can go real high with sales, for sure get the best designers to work for your website, ensure it looks awesome, get professional photography done if you dont have good pictures.

you can brand your website on net and make more then a million dollars selling jewelary online, your next 25 years would need more of internet exposure + your shop both could lead you ahead in the market.

 

As far as photographs go I thought of just using existing photogrpahs i could find on the web. Because i've experienced making my own photo's and those usually take 5 hours per photo which is wayy to much time.

 

www.istockphoto.com
They have tons of jewelry photos.

 

Wouldn't you want to have photo's of the actual products that you sell? That makes more sense, and if you can come up with a destinctive and exclusive design it might even drive more customers your way.

 

An 25 years old business, can easily create a succesful site. As you already have a client list, a good web site - with some special prices maybe? - is a good way to approach your clients, and make some good earnings out of it.

So if you have some budget for this site, use it all for making it professional (design/seo) I will agree that by designing it yourself wont be the best movement.

 

You have such an advantage even over the "big boys" online -- you have 25 years of business and plenty of customers obviously. You should poll them and find out if they would use your website and how.

I work for an old established company (a retailer) who went online about ten years ago. I sit in meetings and laugh while they wring their hands about why their online sales aren't better.

They just assumed that if they took nice pictures of the product that people would naturally order from the website.

The truth is they never really give our customers a reason to go to the website as it doesn't offer them something they can't get in one of our stores...or that they cannot already find in another website online.

You must have jewelry designers in your store. Tap into their expertise, offer exclusives, preview product launches online, allow online ordering and online payment...do ANYTHING to make buying jewelry more convenient through your store online than anywhere else.

If you just throw up pictures of jewelry with your logo then you'll get just what you deserve: nothing.

 

Depends on what market you have planned to target, are you focusing to your domestic market or overseas market or both? However you should prepare to face tough competition in the selling of jewellery for international market.

 

I have a client who generates quite alot of there sales from press releases and competitions in magazines and newspapers.