Questions about new one-of-a-kind jewelry website

That is his usual style, although he does sometime include a tiny nugget of
help from his vast storehouse of ............Hmmm can't think of a nice way
to describe what I think his vast storehouse is.
Mark
PS just remember Mr. A...Delta Airlines is ready when you are.
M
"carrie" wrote in message
...
Abrasha wrote in message
. ..
Jessica wrote:

Hi everyone. I'm starting a online jewelry business soon - will be
selling very unique trendy/contemporary jewelry (Price range $80
-250/pc), targeting younger group of consumer (under 35, maybe). I'd
like to get some advice from the group, how should I go about
promoting my site or products? If you were a shopper, looking for
some trendy jewelry for social events (clubbing) - you know, the very
GQ-look type of style, where would you go? Or what magazines do you
read? or review sites?

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

-Jessica


You're in for a wild ride, and setting yourself up to lose bundles of
money
and/or a great deal of time.

Scores of very well financed jewelry web sites have failed before you.
With
well financed, I mean millions of dollars. Right now I can only think
of
Miadora as far as jewelry is concerned. Others, still in business have
tons of
money behind them.

The fact that you come for research to this rather sparsely populated
newsgroup
of at best a motley crew of participants of varying backgrounds,
demonstrates
clearly that you do not have a clue about what you are trying to get
yourself
into. BTW, with motley crew, I do include myself, because even though I
may be
a craftsman of some accomplishments, as far as marketing and business
acumen are
concerned, I still operate by the seat of my pants. We are mostly a
group of
crafts people, with bench experience. We are by and large not business
people,
market researchers, bankers, venture capitalists, CEO material, etc.
You are
coming to the wrong place!

Do yourself a favor, and study the "case studies" of failed online
marketers
very thoroughly, before you do this.

A bankroll of about $2 million, will get your web site started, assuming
you
have the products, to deliver possible orders. Promoting to the under
35 group,
would include MTV, WIRED magazine, etc. After you run out of your first
couple
of mil, you will need a second round of financing to keep the site
afloat, pay
staff, pay suppliers, servers, etc. Better find yourself a group of
generous
venture capitalists who suffer from amnesia.

Of course, you could also do it on a shoe string like I did, and reap a
gross of
about $20,000 to $40,000 a year from it, not enough to give up your day
job.
Also, my site did not start paying off until last year, and it has been
up since
March of 1996. So you have to be patiently waiting for a trickle of
income.
And my site has the benefit of always showing up within the first 10
hits (often
#1 or #2) when doing a search in Google, Yahoo, Lycos and other search
engines
when using the search criteria of "jewelry design", "contemporary
jewelry", or
"contemporary jewelry design". I get about 160 unique visits a day.
You'll
have to get at least 1000 to 2500 unique visits a day, if you want to
ever hope
of beginning to make any real money.

Lastly, you throw around some very general slogans like "very unique
trendy/contemporary jewelry", "trendy jewelry for social events" and
"the very
GQ-look type of style" Who defines those terms? Do you pretend to know
what
under 35 year olds want?

Do yourself a favor, save some money or better still, get some "very
unique
trendy/contemporary very GQ-look type of style jewelry for social
events" at
abrasha.com

Mention that you read about the site in rec.crafts.jewelry and they'll
give you
2% off already bargain basement prices.

Abrasha
http://www.abrasha.com

I just read this question and answer, I am amazed at the answer given
to Jessica.
Abrasha, you sound angry and bitter. Instead of giving her some help
and sharing your vast knowledge you lamb blasted her about trying to
sell her creations. Are afraid of the competition or just don't like
the marketing aspect of your business?
It does not take millions to create and keep a website. There are
places she can sell her products without a personal website. I too am
a designer and am trying to sell my product so I am checking out
sights. The only one I know of right now is Ruby Lane but I will check
out others.
I wish I had more help for Jessica but this is really aimed at
Abrasha, try to be more helpful to the newbies to marketing their
creations that they are just as proud of as you are of yours.
Carrie