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.

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.

We are now closed for our Christmas and New Year break, and will re-open for business on Tuesday, January 12th.

Please feel free to place orders during this time, but be aware that they will not be processed or dispatched until we re-open in January. The same applies to any telephone, email, or website communications.

We’d like to wish all our customers a happy and prosperous Christmas, and we look forward to providing you with some great fashion jewellery next year.

Valentine’s Day – the busiest time of year for men buying jewellery. Pity the wives and girlfriends. It’s a painful time to be a jewellery retailer, watching so many men buy jewellery that will only be worn once. Because outside the expensive gold and diamonds, men simply cannot buy jewellery that women want to wear.

Years ago, when we sold retail, the week leading up to Valentine’s Day was when we got rid of our dullest, most boring women’s watches and necklaces – the drab grey stuff that women simply refused to buy for themselves at any time of the year. Men arrived in their droves to buy these items. No doubt there was many a fake smile on Valentine’s morning, with promises of ‘saving it for a special occasion‘, because it was ‘too good to wear every day‘. Translation: she hates it but doesn’t want to say so.

That same male inability to buy women’s jewellery extends to retailers sourcing jewellery from wholesalers. We can spot male buyers by the contents of their shopping baskets. It’s not that they buy greys and blacks (women jewellers buy a lot of these too), it’s the absence of any strong colours. Our male buyers rarely buy pink, orange, or blue jewellery. Their courage runs out after one or two red items.

So let me say this simply: Women like and want colourful jewellery. It’s what they buy when they have a choice; it’s what they love to wear; it’s what their friends are wearing. They want orange rings, bright blue necklaces, and pink everything.

A word of advice to our conservative male customers: Unless you’re selling exclusively to men, you need to be buying bright colours.

Regular customers may have noticed changes to our home page recently. These changes are only visible to customers who have already placed an order with us, and include a new section listing the best selling lines of the past week. If you can’t see this page, then either you haven’t placed an order yet, or you are viewing our website on a different PC to the one used to place your previous order.

This new section on the home page is designed to make purchasing decisions a little easier, and to highlight those items that are selling rapidly. If any of the items displayed are of interest to you (and they certainly should be, as they have already proven themselves to be strong sellers to retailers across the UK), then you should consider placing larger orders, rather than ordering only 1 or 2 of each. As these items are the strongest sellers, they are also the most likely to sell out.