Stocks of CZ Rings and heavy Sterling Silver Bracelets are now back up to decent levels.

Our large silver bracelets have always proven popular and we had been almost out of stock for a number of weeks. As usual, each bracelet is listed showing its dimensions and weight in grams. With the recent increases in the price of silver, it’s very important that you check the actual weight of items before purchase. A good photographer can easily give the impression that a light weight piece of jewellery is bigger, and heftier than it really is.

About 40 new lines of CZ (cubic zirconia) rings are now available. Unlike Costume Jewellery, popular lines of silver do not go out of fashion, but we still like to mix it up a little with new designs.

We’re expecting our latest range of body jewellery to be available within the next few days, so watch this space.

It’s never easy to know what to buy. The public are fickle creatures at best, who want one thing one day, and something else the next. What was popular three or four months ago, is old fashioned today.

So how do you decide which items to order, and which have passed their sell by date? Our shelf life for Fashion and Costume Jewellery is not that long. We tend to order just enough of each line to last about four months, and many of the more popular lines sell out within two months, so you’re unlikely to find last years fashions on our site.

But that doesn’t help you decide what is right for your customers today. Necklaces that sell well in Edinburgh may not sell so well in Cardiff or London. And what sells in Ireland… well, let’s just say that the Irish are in a class all their own when it comes to fashion jewellery.

You could buy one of each item. But then you might find yourself left with many single, unsold items. You could use your experience to choose what you think will sell, and buy heavily in just those lines. But then you might be wrong, and be left with dozens of similar items that your local customers do not want.

To help you decide, we’ve put together a new Popular Items Page. This page is updated many times a day, and shows you which items fellow retailers across the UK are buying. The page lists the last 60 items purchased in reverse order, and in doing so allows you to draw upon the experience of jewellery retailers across the country when you make your decision (jewellery, accessory, and gift shop owners, party planners, market traders, eBay sellers and jewellery websites).

Should you buy lots of cheap items for a pound or two, or invest in some of the more expensive sterling silver bracelets and rings? By keeping an eye on this page, daily or weekly, you should gain a broader insight into what’s selling up and down the land, and make these sorts of questions easier to answer.

We’d appreciate any feedback you might have on this new page. Does it help you when deciding what to order? Could we extend it in any way?

Click here for the Popular Jewellery Items Page

If you’ve been selling jewellery for any length of time, you will have noticed increases in silver prices across the board. This increase will have affected any jewellery with a sterling silver component: rings, pendants, chains, as well as bracelets. Changing suppliers or finding new wholesalers or importers will make little difference. Unlike Costume Jewellery, silver has a fixed price on world markets, so bargains are next to impossible to find.

Silver prices have increased 106% in the past two and a half years, and more significantly, a whopping 33% since mid December. The driving force behind these increases is not an upsurge in silver jewellery sales, but rather the alternate uses for silver such as in electrical conductors, photographic film and disinfectants. The emerging markets of China, India, Russia and Eastern Europe are key players in these industries, which show no signs of slowing down.

What does this mean for Sterling Silver Jewellery?

Unfortunately, it means that prices are rising, and that they will continue to rise. Manufacturers are paying more for the silver they use, and those costs are passed along the chain to importers, wholesalers, retailers, and the end customer.

We always list the weight in grams of each Sterling Silver item we sell, and try to price each item as reasonably as possible. Despite the recent price increases, we’re still very competitively priced, and are fully confident you won’t find our lines at such low prices elsewhere.

Going forward, we will endeavour to keep our sterling silver prices as low as possible.

Some of you may have noticed the new sterling silver lines that began appearing over the past few days. This is the result of Bob’s recent restocking trip, and we hope to have the majority of the new stock live by the end of the week.

It takes a little time to properly photograph each item, and transfer all the information to the website. This is being carried out right now, in between processing and shipping orders.

We have new items available in every one of our sterling silver categories, including Baltic Amber, Mother of Pearl, Plain Silver, and CZs. Our stock of silver snake chains is now back up to date, with batches of 16 and 20 inch chains ready for sale, and of course, our ever popular 18 inch chains.

All of our new bracelets are now live on the website. At latest count, we have 70 individual lines, in a variety of styles, all at very competitive prices. As with our necklaces and sets, we’re fairly confident you won’t have seen these designs before.

When it comes to fashion jewellery, quality bracelets are probably the single item retailers have the greatest difficulty sourcing. Though all wholesale jewellery companies sell bracelets, they tend to be in limited ranges, and these ranges are often the same (or close enough) across companies. For this very reason, we make a special effort when it comes to bracelets.

We have large quantities of each bracelet, but still expect to sell most of them over the next couple of months. As fashions change so quickly when it comes to costume jewellery, we are unlikely to restock sold out lines - preferring to introduce new items - so if any of the designs interest you, don’t leave it too late!

A small number of customers who placed orders over the past 6 weeks may have experienced difficulties on delivery. This was due to changes in the way Ireland’s mail carrier shipped to the UK, which in some cases involved use of a third part (Fedex), in place of Royal Mail.

We found that the small number of problems that occurred were traced back to Fedex, and have taken steps to ensure it does not happen again.

Effective immediately, all shipments will be dispatched using DHL. We expect delivery times to be about 1 day shorter than previously, and far more reliable. We are currently working on integrating DHLs order tracking system with our own systems, and when that is complete, hope to include the DHL tracking number in all dispatch emails. This will make it easier for customers to track the progress of their packages.

As a result of these new shipping arrangements, we have changed the way we charge for postage. We are now able to charge a single, flat rate for deliveries, rather than varying costs dependent on weight. From now on, all deliveries to the UK and Ireland will be charged at £9.95 (excl. VAT). For other destinations, please see the Deliveries link on the shopping basket page.

Customers who buy a lot of Costume or Fashion Jewellery will notice a decrease in delivery costs by a few pounds per order, whereas customers who regularly buy small amounts of sterling silver jewellery may notice a slight increase.

Free delivery still applies to orders above £225 for UK and Irish customers.

Our regular customers will no doubt be aware that our Sterling Silver collection has been running a little low of late. Every day we are selling out of individual lines, and our collection of snake chains is down to only a single variety - the 18″ chains.

This situation will be rectified shortly. We expect to have a new collection available starting the second week in July. As always, we will have a number of new lines, as well as a return of some of our most popular items. This will include the heavy Sterling Silver Bangles that have recently sold out, varying lengths of snake chains, and a range of boxes of CZ earrings.

Bob will be jetting off to meet with suppliers at the beginning of July, and we anticipate the first of the new stock going live a few days after his return. Unlike previous restocking trips, we will not be shutting down for the duration, so you won’t need to adjust your buying habits to accommodate us.

We will be concentrating on Sterling Silver this trip, as our fashion jewellery lines are quite full and up to date.

Our new range of Fashion Jewellery necklaces and necklace and earring sets is now live on our website. We’re very pleased with the new pieces, all of which have come from new suppliers. Unlike our previous collections, these were made specifically for us by manufacturers, which means your customers and competitors are unlikely to have seen them before.

We try to keep our range as contemporary as possible, which is why we endeavour to update with new lines every few months. Unlike our sterling silver jewellery, we never purchase the same lines of Fashion Jewellery again. Once we’ve sold out of a particular item, it’s sold out for good.

For the first time, we are now listing Fashion Rings. This is a trial for us, as we have no idea how they will sell on the high street. Initially, we have approximately 40 lines of individual rings. All are adjustable, which means they come as ‘one size fits all‘. Prices are as low as £0.80-£0.90 (excl. VAT).

They seem to be selling well so far, but it’s early days yet. Any feedback on these rings, and on how they go down with your customers, would be most welcome.

We’re very pleased to announce that our new Shopping Basket went live this morning. Hopefully, this will make everyone’s job just that little bit easier. There’ll be no more writing down item numbers, emailing us the details, and waiting for us to send you back a PayPal invoice. From now on, you can browse through the catalogue, add what ever you wish to your basket as you go, and pay when you are ready.

The shopping basket will speed up the order process and allow us to get the goods to you much more quickly. A few points worth noting:

• We still use PayPal to accept all payments. However, you do not need to have a PayPal account. If you choose, you can simply enter your credit or debit card details in place of a PayPal ID. After entering your name and address information, you will be automatically directed to PayPal, where you can pay your invoice.
• Anyone who has problems using PayPal (for example: some corporate credit cards block PayPal payments) should contact us for details on how to pay by Bank Transfer. You can still use the shopping basket, but we need to direct you to an alternate payment page.
• All pages on our site that ask for personal information (name and address, for example) are encrypted, so there is no danger that this information will fall into the wrong hands.
• Postage and delivery costs are calculated as you add items to your basket, and are based on weight. The difference in postage costs between countries is low, and for this reason we have chosen to charge the same, regardless of destination. There is a special discount for UK and Irish buyers where the total purchase amount is above £250. Details can be found by clicking on the Delivery link on the shopping basket page.
• The shopping basket will not allow you to buy any item that has run out of stock. For example, if you order 10 of a particular necklace and we only have 8 remaining, the shopping basket will tell you and allow you to change the amount.

Now that the site changes are complete, we will be putting up a range of new stock from our restocking trip a couple of weeks ago. All the new stock will appear at the front of any catalogue page.

One final change we made to the site is the addition of a FAQ page. This page answers many of the more commonly asked questions, and should keep you informed a lot quicker than we can by email. If you have any questions not answered here, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

One of the most important elements in running a successful wholesale business is knowing who your customers are, and this is even more crucial when most of those customers buy online. The days of large wholesale companies sending sales reps out to bricks and mortar shops is fast fading. While it’s true that many of the more established wholesalers have yet to realise this, online selling, and the new opportunities it has opened up for independent retailers, has changed all this.

We only sell wholesale online, and have no showroom, no industrial sized warehouse, and no team of salesmen driving company cars up and down the country. It is for this reason that we are able to sell at the prices we do.

The great downside of selling in this manner is that we never get to meet our customers face to face. Even speaking to them on the telephone is a rarity, as most communication is carried out by email. As such, it takes a lot more effort to ferret out any real information about them. A yahoo.com email account and a residential shipping address tell us next to nothing beyond their geographic location, and buyers are notoriously cagey about their own businesses.

So who are we selling to in the UK jewellery world?

1. Small Independent Shops.
We don’t have any large chains on our books, and have no desire to seek them out. But smaller retail establishments are another matter entirely, and by this I don’t mean regular jewelers. A whole range of shops from fashion boutiques to shoe shops sell small amounts of jewellery to compliment their primary business. The problem is, the amount of jewellery they sell, whether watches, rings, or necklaces, does not compare to the larger High Street jewelers, and as such, they often have difficulty dealing direct with jewellery wholesalers.

Buying online gives these retailers the opportunity to source low volumes of stock from many different suppliers, without entering into any long term agreements, and without having to take the time out of their day to visit warehouses in distant cities. Most of our sales to these sorts of clients come during the evening, after the shops have closed and the business day has ended.

2. Jewellery Party Planners
When we began selling wholesale, jewellery party planners were amongst our earliest clients, and at the time it was an industry we knew very little about. The vast majority of women who organise jewellery parties work through larger companies such as Virgin Vie in the UK and Lia Sophia in the US. There are however, a small number of more entrepreneurial and ambitious woman who are prepared to take a little more risk, bypassing these companies entirely and sourcing their stock direct.

The advantages of this approach are that they are not tied to working for a single company, or to buying their stock from only one source. More variety, purchased direct from wholesalers at varying prices, leads to greater profits. On the back of our experiences with these clients, we’ve put together a Jewellery Party page, where we offer some tips on how to make the most from your parties.

3. Professional Market Traders
Wholesale companies do not like selling to market traders. I have no idea why this is the case, as our experience has shown these same traders to be very professional and easy to do business with. This bias against market traders benefits no one and has led to many traders seeking alternate sources for their jewellery stock. Their busiest times of year seem to be the summer months, when outdoor music festivals and similar events are hosted across the UK, and of course, the weeks leading up to Christmas.

The volume of stock sold by traders at these events is often higher than a high street shop boasts at their busiest time of year, which makes the attitude of many wholesalers all the more incomprehensible.

4. Car Boot Sellers
Alongside the full time traders, weekend sellers who ply their wares at car boot sales across the country have proven to be an unexpected source of business. Though the amount of stock they buy is significantly lower than their more professional counterparts, there is a consistency in how they order. Many wholesalers impose a large minimum order size that turns these buyers away, but we’ve found that once this order size is dropped to more enticing levels, they begin to place regular orders.

On the negative side, along with market traders, these buyers are almost fully dependant on weather conditions for the success of their business. The recent flooding across the UK had a major impact on the frequency of their orders.

5. eBay Sellers
In terms of setting up a small business, it doesn’t get any easier than eBay. Anyone, anywhere, can set up an eBay business, but not everyone does so successfully. The key to succeeding in the long term lies in sourcing stock at affordable prices. When eBay and PayPal fees are taken into account, this becomes even more important. We’ve often found our own stock appearing in eBay shops just days after it was dispatched, selling at high markups. As with car boot traders, eBay sellers tend to buy low volumes of stock frequently, waiting to see what sells and what doesn’t before purchasing more.

When you know who your customers are, it makes buying new stock that little bit easier. Jewellery Party Planners buy far more fashion necklaces than other buyers, while market traders do not buy large volumes of rings (far too easy to steal, we’ve been told). Being able to target these different types of buyers direct rather than relying on generic ‘catch all’ marketing is a huge advantage.

We’d be interested to hear from any buyers who fall into categories not mentioned above. Do you sell your jewellery in a way we haven’t heard of? Or do you find that our range of stock is lacking in some key area?