The first of our new Christmas stock went live on the website a couple of days ago, and it’s already proving very popular. This update contains over 200 new lines, many of them in unique styles that we’ve never carried before like the sample below.

Every order in the past couple of days has contained a few of these chunky necklaces.

So what’s new in this update:

1. Fifty new designs of fashion rings in bright colours and fresh styles. We haven’t carried new colourful fashion rings since last year, so this update was much needed. We’re using a new supplier for these rings, and the finish is excellent.
2. Forty new lines of CZ necklaces. These necklaces have always proven popular.
3. New range of low priced tribal / metallic necklaces, starting at under £2.
4. Wide selection of heavy metallic necklaces and bracelets.
5. Low priced coloured necklaces.
6. 15 new silver coloured cuffs. Our existing range of cuffs was almost sold out.
7. 20 chunky, colourful necklaces similar in style to the one pictured above.

Long time customers will notice that we’re moving away from the very cheap, stringed necklaces we used to carry in large numbers. We feel that that particular style has run its course, and are not planning to restock them.

What else is coming before Christmas?

A selection of colourful Hair Accessories will go live very soon. A wide selection of heavy colourful necklaces, as well as more of the ever popular heavy metallic necklaces will be available in the coming weeks and months.

Our Christmas stock this year is looking to be the best ever.

This post will provide a general outline of pricing structures that we feel are appropriate for the jewellery we sell. You should take the figures laid down as you will, and don’t be afraid to throw them out entirely if they don’t fit your business model.

First of all: know your costs. In order to calculate what you should charge for a necklace, you need to know exactly what you paid for it. Let’s take item number 60297 as an example (one of 2010’s best sellers).

We sell this necklaces for £4.72 + VAT. Assume that you are a small, non-VAT registered business, and that you sell each item packed in an organza bag. Your immediate costs for this necklace would be:

• Cost price: £4.72
• Single Organza bag: £0.09
• Portion of shipping charge: £0.40
• Vat @ 17.5%: £0.91

This brings the total cost price of this necklace to £6.12. This would be reduced if you placed larger orders and availed of free shipping, but let’s assume you place small £100 orders each week. You will also need to be aware of extra costs that are not directly linked to the necklace itself (rent, transport, wages, etc.), but that’s not something we are in any position to guide you on.

Our rule of thumb for setting a retail price is: Times Three, + or – 20% depending on the expectations of your retail establishment and your customers. This makes the Recommended Retail Price of the necklace £14.70 – £22.00. A High Street shop might charge £22.00, a Party Planner might charge £17.50, a market trader might charge £14.95. If you charge £8.00 for this necklace, you will not be in the jewellery business this time next year.

Using the same formula (Times Three, + or – 20%), and assuming that you are availing yourself of the free shipping that applies to orders above £200, the following Recommended Retail Prices could be set:

Necklace 60383, selling for £3.35 + VAT.
RRP: £9.70 – £14.50

Bracelet 9511, selling for £3.87 + VAT.
RRP: £11.20 – £16.70

Fashion Ring 3697, selling for £1.41 + VAT.
RRP: £4.20 – £6.30.
Be careful not to over price fashion rings.

Ladies Watch 3219, selling for £7.43 + VAT.
RRP: £20.95 – £31.50.

These are recommendations only, and should be adapted to suit your own circumstances. When in doubt, you should select the middle of the price range, with is total cost price * 3 . Many years ago, when we sold as retailers ourselves, we tended towards lower prices, preferring to pile them high and sell them cheap, but this approach may not appeal to all retailers.

The other day, a new customer placed their first order. It was a good sized, respectable order of over 200 items, mostly necklaces and fashion rings. We’ll never see this customer again. This time next year they won’t be in the jewellery business.

How do I know this?

We can spot a jewellery business that is likely to succeed based on the contents of their shopping basket. And we can spot a jewellery business that is likely to fail in the same way.

What do I mean by success?

Selling jewellery that women want. Selling jewellery that sells itself. And selling lots of it.

We’ve been in this business a long time, first as retailers, then wholesalers, now importers. As retailers, we sold our jewellery in huge volumes. We knew our customers, we knew what they wanted, and we gave it to them. We didn’t care what the shop next door to us was selling, we sold jewellery in our shops that nobody else in Ireland or in the UK had, and we travelled across the world to find it. And we did all this because it was what our customers wanted. We did it because it sold.

Even though the economy is weak, and there isn’t as much money floating around as there used to be, women still do not want cheap jewellery. This is hard for a lot of jewellery business owners to accept, that it’s not about price. That it’s never about price.

Let me say that again: JEWELLERY IS NOT ABOUT PRICE! IT’S NEVER ABOUT PRICE!

Women want jewellery that looks good, and they’ll find the money to pay for it. They don’t want cheap jewellery and they won’t buy it. Their 12 year old kids might buy it, but they won’t, not in any sort of volume.

So what did our new customer do wrong?

They bought based on price. They bought over 200 lines of necklaces and fashion rings, and they bought only from the lowest price blocks available in our catalogue. You know the stuff I’m talking about: the £1.40 necklaces and the £0.85 fashion rings.

There’s nothing wrong with these lines in small doses. They sit well in the middle of more expensive items, and they do sell – in small doses. But when this is all you have in your jewellery display, when your customers are forced to buy cheap and only cheap jewellery, you can kiss your business goodbye.

Now, we make as much profit on an order of cheap jewellery as we do from an order of more expensive jewellery. Our markup is the same, so in the short term it makes no difference to us which items our customers choose.

But in the long term it makes a huge difference. Customers who buy only our cheap lines will not succeed as well as customers who buy our expensive lines. They will not return and place large orders every couple of weeks, and in all likelihood they will not be around to buy from us next year. And the reason for this is that their customers want the better lines. These retailers may not realise it, because they’ve always bought based on price, but their customers do not want cheap necklaces retailing at £5 or £6, they want stylish, classy necklaces that their friends will notice, and they’re willing to pay £20 or £30 or more for them.

We have regular customers who started off buying cheap items every couple of months. Then one month, for whatever reason, they added a few necklaces at £5.50 each. And a week later they’re back, and they’re spending a couple of hundred pounds on the top end of our catalogue. Then they come back for a third time and they order in volume, probably for the very first time in their lives, and it’s all high end stuff: chunky, colourful necklaces, heavy metallic necklaces, charm bracelets at £5 each, and our expensive fashion rings.

Why? Because the more expensive stuff sells! It flies off the shelves.

I don’t expect to convince anyone that they are better off spending more money per item. This belief that price matters is ingrained far too deeply in some retailers minds, usually those at the very bottom rung of the ladder. But the reality is, if they ever want to move up from that bottom rung, they need to realise that Jewellery is never about price.

So if you’re that person, my advice to you is next time you order, choose 20  expensive items instead of 100 cheap items. You’ll never look back.

We supply a large number of jewellery retailers in Northern Ireland. Most of these retailers find us through Google searches and a very small number through word of mouth recommendations. Our Northern Ireland customers are very similar to our remote Scottish customers, in that they buy from us out of necessity rather than convenience.

Northern Ireland is very much a remote area when it comes to wholesale jewellery suppliers. Its geographic location and small population make it a no go destination for suppliers of many kinds. The bricks and mortar jewellery wholesalers of Manchester and London are a plane trip away, as are the fairs and trade shows from which many retailers find new suppliers. A journey to the recent Home & Gift show in Harrogate would have been an expensive undertaking for any jewellery retailer or gift shop owner in Northern Ireland. And its geographic isolation make it an expensive trip for many of the jewellery sales reps who work for the larger British jewellery importers.

There are a small number of suppliers in Northern Ireland, as any Google search will show, but they tend to lean towards the higher end of the jewellery market with little in the way of costume jewellery.

There’s Ellison Brothers and Gardiner Brothers, both in Belfast and both dealing primarily in precious metal jewellery – not ideal for the average gift shop – and there’s a costume jewellery wholesaler in Warrenpoint, Co. Down who doesn’t seem to have a business name.

And that’s about it for Northern Ireland. A glance through 4NI, Northern Ireland’s primary portal and resource website, does throw up a few other names, most of whom are either out of business or possess websites that lead to nowhere.

Northern Ireland is clearly a jewellery supplier black spot, not dissimilar to the highlands and islands of Scotland. Unfortunate as this is, it does play a major part in our own success when selling to retailers up North. Buying from jewellery suppliers online, though a bit of a risk the first time, does level the playing field between small, independent retailers, and their larger counterparts. And this is a market segment we’re happy to fill.

Our Costume Jewellery Catalogue >>

Where do you meet other jewellery retailers? Where do you talk about the very specific issues that affect your business? Chances are you don’t.

There are business forums out there, but how much advice can a web designer or a bricklayer give you about your jewellery displays? There are forums dedicated to making and selling your own jewellery, but how many retailers frequent these?

This is why we’ve created what we think is the first dedicated Jewellery Retailer Forum. The forum is for you, the Retailer. It’s a forum where you can ask any question about your business that springs to mind, and receive answers and advice from fellow jewellery business owners.

It’s completely anonymous – you don’t even have to create an account or log in. Just ask your question, make your point, or answer somebody else’s question. Feel free to post specific industry related questions without your competitors knowing it’s you. You have nothing to lose from participating in the forums, and everything to gain.

So who is welcome? Jewellery shop owners, gift shop and hair salon owners who sell jewellery, shoe shop owners who have jewellery displays, jewellery party planners, market traders, ebay sellers, eCommerce jewellery businesses. Anyone who sells jewellery is welcome.

Take a look at the forums, and get started!

Today we launched our new credit card payment option. This is in addition to PayPal and the telephone payments we currently take, and will make it easier for those without PayPal accounts to pay for their orders.

As many of you know, PayPal often has a problem with business credit cards. Customers who wish to use business credit cards, or customers who might prefer to pay directly by credit card rather than PayPal, can now do so by selecting Payment Option 1 on the final payment page.

Credit card payments are only accepted when customers are paying in Sterling, and using either a Mastercard or a Visa credit or debit card. Customers who wish to pay by UK switch, solo, or maestro cards or who wish to pay in Euro, should continue to use the PayPal payment option.

Our second Spring Collection is now available. This update contains some great new necklaces and bracelets in bright, summer colours, as well as a large selection of CZ bracelets and necklaces. Some of these items were popular sellers from last year, but many are new, fresh pieces that we feel will prove to be very strong sellers.

We’re very happy with the quality of these new designs, as they have been finished to an excellent standard.

It’s been some time since we’ve had ladies watches available for sale, but that all changed yesterday. We now have over 50 high class ladies watches available. These watches come in presentation boxes, and we recommend that they be sold on at £20-£35.

Three weeks ago, we introduced a 10% discount for customers who chose to have their jewellery shipped in its original factory packaging, as opposed to re-packaged by us into display packaging. This offer was only applicable to orders above £100, and the response was very positive. Almost all customers repeatedly chose factory packaging at the lower price.

As a result, we are changing our packaging options. Henceforth, all jewellery will be shipped in its original packaging. For the small number of customers who may wish to purchase display packaging, we will be extending our packaging catalogue accordingly. We will of course check each item carefully before it is shipped to ensure quality is not affected.

But what about the 10% discount?

A price reduction has already been applied to every item in our catalogue. Your £150 order of yesterday will cost you £136.50 today.

We’ve made a few changes to our returns process, which we hope will speed things up and make returning any items damaged on route easier. From now on, returns must be accompanied by a completed Returns Form [PDF], which should include the order number, as well as the item numbers of each item being returned.

Returns are rare, as are breakages, and we expect this to continue. The returns form can be downloaded here:

http://www.nirvanawholesale.com/…pdf

We don’t usually restock sold out lines, but we’ve made an exception for a small number of our best selling items from October and November. All of these tribal necklaces sold out very quickly, particularly the first two pictured below. We now have significant stocks of all 4 of these necklaces available.