Do you have a talent for creating jewelry or old jewelry that you no longer want? There’s a huge market online for necklaces, bracelets, rings and any other type of jewelry you could imagine. Before I started blogging, I used to sell jewelry online, his is how I got to digital marketing. There’s plenty of money to be made if you have the right strategy. The biggest challenge? Figuring out where to sell jewelry online.
Let’s look at some of the top sites to sell jewelry on and explore how profitable this market can be.
3 Tips for Selling Jewelry Online
1. Know Your Audience
To maximize your sales and profits, you have to know your audience. It doesn’t matter whether you’re designing and creating your own jewelry or selling pieces in your collection – you have to know who you’re selling to and what kind of jewelry they love.
Consider creating buyer personas to help you get a clear picture of your ideal customer. It may seem like extra work, but when you know your customers, it’s easier to create marketing messages that really resonate with them.
It will also help you create more appealing designs.
Even if you’re only selling your old jewelry, you should still understand your audience. Why? Because this information will help you:
- Narrow down which platforms will work best for your listings
- Write your descriptions with your audience in mind
2. Have a Marketing Plan
Whether you’re reselling old jewelry or designing your own, you need a marketing plan – a plan for promoting your products. Without a plan, you may struggle to get sales.
- Will you buy ads and what is your monthly budget?
- Will you use social media to build an audience and promote your shop and platforms?
- Will you do a combination of these two things?
The more eyes you can get on your products, the better.
3. If You’re Selling Your Old Jewelry, Get it Appraised
If you’re reselling valuable jewelry, take the time to get it appraised first. An official appraisal will give your listing more credibility and make your items more appealing to buyers.
Is Selling Jewelry Profitable?
Depending on what type of jewelry you want to sell, your venture could be highly profitable. In fact, the average monthly revenue for jewelry boutiques can range from $2,000 to $50,000 or more.
Of course, your actual profit margins and revenue will depend on what type of jewelry you’re selling. But it’s absolutely a profitable business. In fact, the global online jewelry market is expected to reach $130.86 billion by 2032. In 2023, it was valued at $45.33 billion.
The demand is there, and the market is expected to continue growing over the next decade.
But I cannot stress enough how important it is to have a plan if you’re going to design and sell jewelry. Treat it like you would any other type of business, and I’m sure you will succeed.
Part of the planning process is figuring out where you’ll sell your products. Let’s look at some of the best places to sell jewelry online.
Where to Sell Jewelry Online – Top 5 Sites
1. Etsy
Etsy was the platform I used to sell my jewelry when I started. If you’re new to selling online and aren’t sure where to sell jewelry online, Etsy is the perfect platform for you to sell on. The online marketplace has over 97 million buyers, and as of writing this, there are more than 24.3 million jewelry listings (including ads).
Many of these sellers have had thousands of sales.
- ISTANBULJEWELSILVER has had 19,866 sales
- BedrockBijoux has had over 26,000 sales
- GoldHillJewelry has had 141,436 sales
Clearly, there’s a market for jewelry on Etsy, and the more niche your shop, the better. For example, GoldHillJewelry sells personalized jewelry. ISTANBULJEWELSILVER is based in Istanbul and offers very unique, ornate jewelry.
What’s so great about Etsy is that it takes only a few minutes to create your first shop, and you’re ready to start selling your jewelry ASAP. You don’t need to invest a lot of money upfront; you’ll just be charged a listing fee of $0.20 USD for each item. Plus, you’ll pay a 6.5% fee every time you make a sale, which is great because you don’t need to pay anything upfront or deal with monthly fees for plans.
The biggest advantage of selling on Etsy is that you have a huge built-in audience, and customers already trust the brand. They’re more likely to take a chance and buy from your shop because the platform is still backed by Etsy and its customer support.
The drawback? It’s competitive – very competitive, especially if you sell jewelry. If you want to sell jewelry on Etsy and succeed with your shop, I highly recommend:
- Finding a niche in the jewelry market that isn’t oversaturated. A unique niche I found back then was nose rings.
- Doing keyword research and learning how to optimize your Etsy listings
- Getting active on social media to start building an audience
- Finding your unique selling point – what makes you different from other sellers?
We cover these points and more in greater detail in our guide: How to Start an Etsy Shop. If you’re new to Etsy, I highly recommend reading this guide.
Etsy gives you access to a huge audience. Many sellers wind up spending less on marketing because they already have such a huge reach on Etsy.
If you’re planning to advertise on Etsy, I would recommend to promote only your best selling items. Otherwise it’s a waste of your money because, based on my experience, their ads are quite expensive.
If you don’t have a name for your shop yet – check out these articles here:
36 Seriously Cute Bracelet Business Names
35 Incredibly Creative Craft Business Names
37 Insanely Stylish Jewelry Business Names
2. Shopify
If you don’t mind doing some legwork to build your brand and audience, Shopify can be a great place to sell jewelry. You’ll have more control over the look of your shop and what you sell.
But keep in mind that you’ll still pay fees:
- A monthly fee for using the Shopify platform (ranges from $5 to $2K+ per month)
- Transaction fee, which ranges from 5% to 0.15–0.30%, depending on which subscription you have
- Credit card fees, which again will depend on your subscription plan
Check out their full pricing here.
And you’ll need to pay for a domain, theme, hosting and other fees. But if you’re serious about your business, have a budget and want to build a real brand with your own website, then Shopify will make it easy to get your ecommerce shop up and running.
The truth is that running an ecommerce store does come with some overhead. Shopify simplifies things, so you can get everything up and running without needing technical knowledge.
If you’re new to Shopify, check out our guide on How to Set Up a Shopify Store to learn how to open a shop step by step.
3. eBay
With more than 135 million users worldwide, eBay is easily one of the biggest online marketplaces. Right now, the platform has over 5 million listings for jewelry.
It’s a huge market with a lot of competition.
Just like with Etsy, we recommend finding a niche within the market to focus on – one that isn’t oversaturated.
Researching niches is your first step. Zik Analytics has a great, in-depth guide on how to find highly profitable niches on eBay.
If you can capture just a small part of the market, you can build a highly profitable business. According to research from Zik Analytics, some jewelry stores on eBay are making $190,000 per month.
Naturally, there are fees involved when you sell on eBay.
- eBay gives you 250 zero insertion fee listings every month. Once you’ve used these up, you’ll pay a fee for each listing per category. For example, if you list your item in two different categories, you will pay a listing fee for each category.
- You’ll also pay a final value fee, which is a percentage of the total sale amount plus an order fee. You won’t have to pay third-party payment processing fees.
Final value fees will depend on the category and sale amount. The higher the purchase, the lower the fee. For example, sales over $7,500 will generally have a significantly lower fee (2.35% vs. 13.25% for orders under $7,500).
Building trust will be the key to succeeding on eBay. Getting those first sales and reviews will be essential.
4. Worthy
If you’re selling pre-owned diamond jewelry and want to know where to sell jewelry online, Worthy can help you get the most money for your items.
They make the process simple, but they won’t accept items valued at under $1,000. And it makes sense because they are an auction-based platform. It takes time and resources to run a successful auction, so anything under $1K won’t be profitable for them.
If you have luxury jewelry items, you’ll be happy to learn that Worthy handles the entire buying process.
- Send them your jewelry.
- They’ll professionally photograph your pieces.
- They’ll have a third-party expert grade your items.
- They’ll work with you to set a reserve price.
The platform takes a percentage of the sale. Here’s how their fees work:
- Up to $5,000: 18%
- $5,001-$15,000: 14%
- $15,001-$30,000: 12%
- $30,001+: 10%
Worthy claims that they can get sellers 2-3X what they’d get locally for their jewelry, but again, you’ll need to have items that will fit their criteria for this platform to work for you.
5. TheRealReal
TheRealReal is another consignment-style for luxury items. Again, this is another platform that only deals with branded fine jewelry and watches. In fact, they have a list of the brands they accept (you can find it here), so I highly recommend checking to see if they will accept your pieces first.
Here’s what you’ll earn:
- $750+: 70% of the sale
- $300-$749: 65% of the sale
- $200-$299: 55% of the sale
- $150-$199: 45% of the sale
- $100-$149: 30% of the sale
- $99 and under: 20% of the sale
You’ll need to send your items to TheRealReal for them to sell on your behalf. They also have a huge audience, so selling items shouldn’t be difficult.
Finding the Right Platform for Your Business
These are some of the top sites for selling jewelry online. I recommend comparing the terms and fees for each one carefully to determine which one will be the perfect fit for you. Etsy and Shopify are the top choices because they have reasonable fees and the ability to build a real, thriving business selling jewelry.
