How to Recession-Proof Your Bead Jewelry Business

A lot of bead jewelry artists who are just getting started selling their jewelry are nervous and anxious about the idea of starting a home jewelry business in the midst of an economic recession with no clear end in sight. Those who have established jewelry and beading businesses are also feeling an economic pinch with raising jewelry supply costs, fewer sales and less overall profits from one craft show to the next.

You can turn your bead jewelry hobby into a bead jewelry business with a little care during rough times.

The good news is that there are some things you can do right now to help keep your jewelry business afloat and continue to make and sell beaded jewelry while still making some decent money doing so. If you’re a student of history then you know that each time the country (or whole world) goes into a recession a lot of people turn away from traditional jobs and begin turning their hobbies or crafts into businesses.

A lot of bead jewelry artists run their small business like a traditional home-based business: make some bead jewelry or beaded items, display them at stores, craft shows and on the internet, and hope that someone buys them. In good economic times this can work well, especially if you are using beads and making jewelry that is popular and in style, but during rougher times you can end up with lots and lots of pieces of beaded jewelry that simply aren’t selling. All that unsold jewelry represents supplies you’ve bought and time you’ve worked without getting paid.

Here are some things you can do to increase your bead jewelry sales while decreasing your beading supply and business costs at the same time:

Use the Same Beaded Jewelry Pattern: For me part of the fun of making jewelry with beads is that just about each and every piece I make is unique. This, however, is not always the best way to run a business or make a profit. One way to reduce your overall costs is to find one or two styles or jewelry pieces that almost always sell well for you and then simply make a bunch of the exact same jewelry piece for craft shows. By doing this you can reduce the amount of time you spend designing your beaded jewelry and you can actually decrease some of your cost for each piece by buying your jewerly supplies in bulk. Instead of paying $5.00 for one crystal pendant you may be able to buy 10 of them for $3.50 a piece. If you sell all 10 necklaces that you make with them then you’ve just increased your profit margin on each piece of jewelry you sold!

I have done this with simple pieces from time to time with great success. Last spring I ended up selling six sets of identical earrings and necklaces to one woman who happened to be a craft show and looking for wedding party jewelry! I later made her some bracelets and sent them to her, but I don’t think I would have gotten any of that sale unless I had the bulk of the jewelry made and ready to go.

Make Buying More Than One Beaded Jewelry Piece Attractive: One sales method I’ve used from time to time to increase my own handmade jewelry sales is to offer “repeat discounts” in a few different ways. I’ve offered a “multi-jewelry” discount rate at some flea markets I’ve worked at in an effort to sell more items. I sell one piece of beaded jewelry at full price, but the second piece of jewelry is 10% off and the third piece of jewelry is 20% off and so forth. If you do this remember to state that the “highest priced” jewelry piece has to be sold at full price and then apply the discounts in descending order. I’ve seen other bead jewelry sellers offer repeat customers a blanket discount as well. The key is keeping track of customers and making sure that you’re still making a decent profit. Customers love incentives like this because it gives them a reason to buy more!

Host A Bead Jewelry Party: Along the same lines of trying to sell more than one jewelry piece at a time, selling beaded jewelry to a whole group is sometimes a lot easier than trying to sell to a bunch of individuals. Many people who host and run jewelry parties say they can make more money in a few hours at a bead jewelry party than they ever make at three days of sitting at a craft show! There are all sorts of kits and books about how to throw a great bead jewelry party. If you want get started right away, you may want to check out this jewelry party guide that many people have found useful.

Work With Other Bead Jewelry Makers: If you’re having a difficult time keeping your jewelry business running on your own, then maybe you need to join forces with some other jewelry making friends! Even if you don’t want to “combine” businesses you can still work together to reduce your costs. You can work together to buy bead jewelry supplies and order larger amounts for a larger discount, you can share a jewelry table at a craft show or you can even split the cost of advertising your website or business in a local paper.

Sell Your Jewelry At Different Craft Shows: If you’re like me then you probably have a few craft shows you attend every single year and you see a lot of the same people selling their crafts at the same shows. That’s a good way to reach repeat customers from one year to the next, but it can also prevent you from branching out to new audiences. Each year I try to sell my beaded jewelry at one or two “new” craft fairs or venues that I’ve never tried before. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn’t, but it at least makes for an interesting weekend! I use FairsAndFestivals.net to help me pick out some new craft shows and events that I’ve never visited in the past. It’s a pretty cheap subscription and it’s a tax deductible business expense!

Run Your Bead Jewelry Business Like a Real Business: A lot of people have a hard time moving from the idea of making bead jewelry as a hobby into making bead jewelry as a business. If you really want to make money by making jewelry then you may want to take some basic business classes at a local community college and invest in some computer software to help you run your bead jewelry business. Simple steps really can make the difference between you paying for your business and your business paying you. I’ve personally found that I can save a lot of money by tracking my inventory closely running the entire bead inventory side of my jewelry business with a program like Bead Manager Pro.

It’s important to remember that handmade bead jewelry is not like traditional jewelry. In rough economic times regular jewelry sales plummet due to their high cost and status as a luxury item. An economic recession can actually be good news for some bead jewelry artists because bead jewelry is suddenly seen as an affordable way to indulge in jewelry buying, it’s handmade (which is always valued) and it’s often seen as a unique gift that shows a lot of thought!

Making and selling your own bead jewelry is a great way to make some extra money at almost anytime, and it seems to become more popular as the economy gets worse. Run your business carefully and keep an eye on your beading supply and advertising costs while aiming to sell more beaded jewelry at one time and you will hopefully do very well!

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