Do's and Don'ts of Building Your Jewellery Collection

Starting your own jewellery collection can be a fun and exciting endeavour. Getting to show off your creations and watching the reactions on your customers' faces as they see your collection for the first time is an exhilarating experience.

However, trying to choose the right pieces and the right designs to put into your collection can also be frustrating and overwhelming. In order to make this experience as stress-free as possible, we have put together a comprehensive list of some of the most common mistakes that new jewellery merchants make as well as some tips to help you get on the right track and build a beautifully unique jewellery collection that perfectly represents your brand.   

Figure Out What You Want Your Brand to Represent

When designing jewellery for your new collection, it is important to know what it is that you want people to know about your brand. Does your brand represent high-end fashion? Is it fun? Is it sophisticated? Or is it perhaps a combination of the three? Whatever you feel that your brand represents, make sure that your collection represents the same thing.

When trying to decide what it is that you want your brand to represent, try to keep it simple. Start by writing down five or six adjectives that you think best describe your brand. Then, narrow that list down to just two or three of your favourite words. Once you have done that, you will have a better idea of what message you want to communicate with your customers.  

Identify Your Buyer Personas

Once you have decided what it is that you want people to think about your brand, the next thing would be to decide what type of person would be interested in your brand. This is your buyer persona.

A buyer persona is a group of buyers that will all have something in common. Here are a few questions you can ask yourself to help you identify out your buyer persona.

• What age group am I trying to sell to?
• What region are my customers from?
• What gender is the majority of my customers?
• What level of income does the majority of my customers have?
• What is the relationship status of my customers?

In order to find this information out, you will need to interact with your customers. One way to do this is to create a social media page and share post regularly. By having customers liking and interacting with your posts, you will be able to discover more about them. You could also start a pole or create surveys on your page to gain more information.

Once you have identified your buyer personas, you will have a better idea of what type of designs your customers are more likely to purchase.  

Pick a Theme For Your Collection

Once you have a good idea of what your customers would like and what message you would like your brand to represent, it is time to come up with a theme that would accurately communicate the message of your brand.

When coming up with a theme, consistency is key. If you are wanting people to know that your brand is elegant and sophisticated, then make sure that every single piece in the collection represents that theme. If you make a few pieces that are expensive and perfectly represent high-end fashion, and then create a few more affordable prices that are made out of cheaper materials, your customers are going to get confused about what kind of jewellery that they can expect when they shop your line. Have a consistent theme will help to ensure that your customers continue to come back the next time that they are looking for a new piece of jewellery.  

Create a Unique Design

The jewellery industry us a multi-billion pound industry in the U.K. alone. And the interest in owning jewellery continues to increase with each passing year. With so many people in the U.K. buying jewellery each year, the market tends to get oversaturated with different jewellery designers. Fortunately, there are several things that you can do to ensure that your collection is able to stand aluminium among the rest.

First, try to find other jewellery manufacturers that have a similar brand as yours. Try to find out what some of their more popular designs and pieces are. The goal here is not to replicate their creations, instead, you need to do the exact opposite.

Study their pieces and try to find out what makes them so popular. Then, try to create pieces that are different and better than that. For example, if one of your competitors' most popular pieces is a necklace that features an emerald stone. The necklace is probably popular because the emerald is considered a rare and beautiful stone. So, when you are creating your own collection, you could consider adding other rare and authenticated gemstones into the piece, like red beryl or tanzanite.

Another tip for designing your collection to research what the latest jewellery trends are. You can then take a certain popular design and then add your own sense of style to it, creating a truly unique piece.

Don't Rush Your Creations

Once you finally have a good idea of what materials you want to use and what you want your pieces to look like, it can be very tempting to start grabbing your tools and creating your jewellery. However, it is very important that you don't rush into anything.

First, you need to get out your pencil and paper and start sketching out a few ideas. If you don't think that your drawing skills are up to par, don't worry, there are several computer programs that can help you sketch and design a piece. There are even several 3D programs that let you see a life-like rendering of your creation before it goes into production.

Don't Be Afraid to Get Creative with Your Designs

When trying to come up with the perfect design for your collection, you want to ensure that your buyer personas find it engaging. However, this doesn't mean that you have to stick to a common design theme that you have seen your ideal customers wearing a million times. Don't be afraid to get creative and think outside of the box when it comes to your designs. With that said, you will also want to refrain from making any of your designs to eccentric or over-the-top until you have been able to properly gauge your customer's likes and dislikes.

When first designing jewellery, you may want to keep the designs very simple at first. Make simple patterns and use only one to two different materials. Then, as your business starts to grow, you can then add a few more pieces that feature more complex designs. If the more unique pieces start to sell regularly, you can then start adding even more, but you will want to make sure that your more extravagant designs are still in line with the what the theme of your brand is. Also, your new designs seem to be popular, make sure that your simple designs are still available a first. You may want to eventually start selling only extravagant pieces, but you will want to gradually ease into it. If you were to completely change all of your designs overnight, that would not only confuse the customer, but it could cause you to lose a few of your customers that were interested in your simple designs.

Have Fun

The last, but not least, one important piece of advice that you should remember when building your own jewellery collection is to have fun. If you are hoping to make a sizeable income with your collection, then obviously, it should be treated as a business and sometimes, there are aspects of every business that are not that fun. However, sketching designs, picking out materials, and watching your ideas come to life can be quite rewarding and very fun.

No matter how stressful the business side of your collection can get, try to take as much joy as you can in the more fun aspects of this adventure. It will not only make the bad times easier to endure but if you are truly having a good time while creating a collection, it will allow you to be more creative and your customers will be able to tell how much you love creating jewellery every time they look at a piece that you personally designed.

Ready to Build Your Jewellery Collection?

Building a jewellery collection from scratch can seem like an overwhelming project at first. But if you take your time and follow the advice listed above, you could have a very prosperous and enjoyable career in the jewellery industry.

At Haruni, we understand the important stories that jewellery can tell and the precious memories that it can make. If you have any questions about building your own jewellery line or you would like to get inspiration for your next design from one of our talented jewellery designers then feel free to contact us today. We have been in the jewellery business for decades and we are committed to making dreams come true.