Is your small jewelry business prepared for holiday shopping? With each day, the craze around holiday shopping intensifies.

Statista reported that by 2025, the number of online shoppers in the USA will reach a whopping 291.2 million. 

The holiday season is undoubtedly the biggest revenue generator for online jewelry stores. However, with the rise in competition, it’s becoming increasingly difficult, especially for small retailers, to attract potential customers and turn a profit during the holiday period. As the holiday season is approaching fast, you should make sure your SMB jewelry e-commerce store is ready for it.

So here are our 8 tips for small jewelry businesses so they can effectively prepare for the upcoming holiday shopping.

1. Functional and Well-Designed Website 

The first impression of your e-commerce website matters to shoppers. A poorly organized interface may further curtail the chances of a sale. 

The first thing that you need to ensure is that your e-commerce store is visually attractive enough to grab the attention of visitors at their very first glance.

So the selection of a theme plays a crucial role here as it determines the final look of your website. However, if you are confident of the aesthetics of your e-commerce site, consider taking feedback from a general audience, like your first circle, your employees, their families, etc.

Besides, the following functional attributes are a must for an e-commerce website:

• Avoid tricky navigation
• The trick to a functional website is navigation above all. Visitors to your site should be able to easily navigate the menu and find exactly what they are looking for with ease.
• Incorporate flexible payment methods for a smooth checkout experience 
• Even if you have a beautifully designed website with simple navigation, you’ll lose potential sales if your checkout is lengthy or complicated.

2. Eye-Catching Product Photos

If you have an e-commerce platform and you are dealing with sophisticated luxurious items like jewelry, product photos play a crucial role in increasing your conversion rate.

You need to make sure that each product is represented fully with a high-resolution professional photograph. In fact, you can include multiple images showcasing different angles of an individual product.

Include images of how the jewelry is meant to be worn on an actual model!

If you haven't already, consider hiring a professional photographer to take some amazing photographs of your jewelry and upload them on the website. 

In fact, there are so many opportunities to use beautiful images that they practically pay for themselves! You can use these incredible-looking photographs on social media and newsletters to increase your customer engagement.

3. Optimize Your Social Profiles

Social media has been an integral part of how we discover brands and form communities.

During the Q4 holidays, social media traffic increases by 73%!

And, as a seller, you must take advantage of that and promote your products on ultra-popular social platforms, like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, etc to create a buzz around your e-commerce jewelry store. But, before anything else, you should ensure that your social profiles are optimized properly. 

First, you must take measures to integrate your website with social channels. Learn How to Connect Shopify to Instagram here!

Besides, you must establish a consistent posting schedule on each platform. And embrace the trending social media content promotion tricks like promoting through shorts and video content to accelerate your sales. While posting videos on Tiktok, make sure to add the product link and include the link in your Instagram biography as well. 

Coming Soon: Social Media Marketing for Jewelers: Top 8 Key Takeaways for 2023

4. Include a Review Section for Each Product

Feedback adds a layer of credibility to your product and to your store. Customers love reading reviews, as it provides them with a sense of security about their purchases. In fact, positive reviews influence the decision-making of customers. Shoppers often look to Google reviews when deciding between two services to see which has better, more recent reviews.

When a buyer is torn between two similar products, he/she will go with the one that contains a higher number of positive reviews. 

Here are some effective ways you can gather reviews for your store or product:

• Asking nicely in person, by text, or through email! (believe us, this actually works)
• Automatic follow-up email once the product is delivered
• Incentivize existing customers with additional discounts if they choose to review

Check out our article for 5 Essential Shopify Apps for Online Jewelry Stores, where we discuss how Zepto and Klaviyo can help you manage and even procure customer reviews!

5. Gifting Option

Throughout the holidays, we’re often purchasing gifts such as jewelry and accessories for others. So, you can include an add-on for gift wrapping at the time of checkout.

Giving the buyers an option to add a personalized message through a gift card is a great way to add sentimental value to your products.

Besides, you can create a separate page containing all sorts of popular jewelry gifts.

6. Holiday-Specific Landing Page

Building a holiday-specific landing page enhances engagement and reduces the bounce rate considerably. You must choose a theme that complements the season.

Pro Tip: add a banner to your store that tells people if they order by a certain date, their gift will arrive in time for Christmas!

And on that page introduce all your special offers, holiday discounts, and so on. 

7. Local SEO is the Key

If your budget does not allow for long-term professional SEO, focus on building good local SEO.

Local SEO is most beneficial for a small-scale firm and provides the best value for each penny you spend. 

Local SEO will enable your business to appear in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) in a specific area. Through this approach, you can target your potential customers and improve your holiday sales figure, without breaking the bank.

‍Follow these 7 steps, specifically designed for jewelers, that will help you enhance your local SEO.

8. Create Relevant Content

Lastly, we would advise you to keep on creating quality content, like blog posts, Quora Answers, Social Media Posts, and so on. 

Post educational and informative content on your website and promotional content like blog posts on relevant forums. By maintaining consistency, you can eventually rank those blogs and generate more traffic, which will eventually increase the existing sales.

You can tailor your keywords to specific holidays or events.

For instance, if a jewelry store is targeting the Christmas holiday, they should focus on blog posts like

• Ultimate Christmas Jewelry Buying Guide
• Christmas Jewelry for Her
• Most Popular Winter Jewelry

Conclusion

Small businesses often arrive late to the holiday preparation party due to limitations in resources, money, and manpower.

But, with proper planning and by utilizing the available resources effectively, you can still make a difference in time for the holidays.

You’ll see that the effort you put in ahead of time will pay out in the long run. And with each year, you’ll improve and refine your strategy, so your operation runs like a well-oiled machine.

Get solutions for growth with ITJ Group, Los Angeles. Schedule a free website audit and we’ll pinpoint your brand’s strengths and areas for improvement.