7 Reasons You Should Be Stocking More Sterling Silver Jewelry
Make more money by buying sterling silver jewelry from wholesalers
We LOVE sterling silver jewelry here at Elf925.com.
Obviously, actions speak louder than words – and our huge selection of wholesale, gorgeous sterling silver pieces speaks quite loudly!
But why do we love sterling silver as a material to use in jewelry? And why should you love it too?
It boils down to some of the basic properties of silver that make it different from gold, platinum, or other jewelry making materials.
In this article, we’re going to break down 7 reasons why you should consider stocking more sterling silver jewelry than you currently do.
We think by the end of this article you’ll be convinced that unless you’re exclusively selling very high end jewelry, sterling silver is the way to go.
#1: Sterling Silver Is Nearly Hypoallergenic
We wrote a whole article about this earlier, so we won’t go into too much detail here. However, we’ll give you an overview of nickel and lead allergies quickly.
Nickel and lead are present in a lot of jewelry, particularly costume jewelry or discount pieces. This is a huge issue, as nickel and lead can cause skin reactions, allergies, brain damage, memory loss, liver problems, and many, many other negative health conditions.
Some people even have an allergic reaction to nickel, so that if they are wearing “normal” jewelry with small amounts of nickel in it, they will still get a rash on their skin.
Sterling silver solves all that. While sterling silver isn’t technically hypoallergenic, it effectively is. Almost everyone can wear sterling silver jewelry without any problems, including people who actively have a nickel allergy.
That means that as a jewelry retailer, you don’t have to worry about your customers getting sick because of your products. Think about the benefits here in terms of peace of mind, not to mention legal liability.
#2: Sterling Silver Is Inexpensive While Still Being a Precious Metal
Sterling silver pieces are relatively inexpensive. For example, most of the pieces at Elf925.com cost less than a few dollars.
Granted, those are wholesale prices, but even so – the point stands.
In tough economic times, people still want to buy jewelry for their loved ones, but they don’t want to spend quite as much money doing so.
Sterling silver saves the day!
Or, if your customers simply enjoy the act of buying jewelry – the selection process, bringing it home, seeing the look on their loved one’s faces as they open the box – sterling silver allows customers to indulge in a sensible way.
As an Ebay article titled “5 Reasons to Buy Sterling Silver Jewelry” states:
“Although it is the whitest, most brilliant metal, sterling silver is more affordable than gold or platinum. Consumers enjoy the fact that the price of silver has always been a fraction of the price of gold…
Getting a beautiful piece of silver jewelry for a modest price is not only an advantage, but it allows consumers to feel as though they have gotten something beautiful for a very good price.
Because sterling silver is more affordable than gold or platinum, it allows consumers to buy more of it than other metals. This creates an abundance of choices for those who like the look of sterling silver jewelry.”
#3: Sterling Silver Is Easy to Maintain, Clean and Polish
This is a big one. When you have hundreds (or thousands) of jewelry pieces in stock, you want to make sure that you can maintain those pieces without wanting to pull your hair out.
Really, all you need to do for sterling silver to stay looking good is to store the pieces in a relatively airtight box and wipe down the pieces with a silver polishing cloth every once in awhile.
If the pieces start to look really funky, you can use the aluminum foil trick we talked about in an earlier post to “hardcore” clean them off without too much effort.
#4: Sterling Silver Has a “Brand Name” – It’s Universally Recognized as Being Valuable
While sterling silver is inexpensive, it still has an extremely effective “brand name” associated with it.
You can test this by asking a child, “what are nice shiny things that people buy when they want to look good?”
The kid would probably say, “Uhh… gold… and silver… and… diamonds!”
And that kid would be exactly right. Silver is such a well known luxury good that you don’t really have to market it too much.
Every good marketer knows that it’s much harder to convince people to buy when they aren’t aware of the benefits of your product.
And the benefits of silver are both immediately visible and well known – it looks beautiful!
Contrast that with some lesser known (but still very affordable) gemstones or other jewelry materials. While these materials may beat silver in many objective ways, it really doesn’t’ matter – because the consumers aren’t aware of them.
For example, at weddings and bridal showers brides want to wear jewelry that is universally recognized as being luxurious.
And sterling silver is incredibly popular at these functions.
As a Business To Community article titled “5 Tips for Making a Silver Jewelry Business Work” states:
“Some voices in the industry will rush to claim that silver has long since lost its former glory on the bridal and wedding market. It’s been replaced by exotic-looking rose gold, or by noble (yet expensive) platinum, palladium and white gold.
While this may be partly true, since these materials are currently seen as very chic, remember that the recession is far from over and that people with less-than-stellar wedding budgets also need wedding bands, engagement rings, tuxedo cufflinks and other accessories that add the needed spark to each nuptial ceremony.
Silver, which has been used in jewelry-making from the antiquity, is far from out-of-style, and it is also much more affordable than the vast majority of precious metals.”
#5: You Can Target Niche Markets More Easily With Silver Pieces
Think about a specific niche market within the jewelry world.
Maybe it’s jewelry for people who love yoga. Or jewelry for a particular religious tradition that isn’t very widespread.
Or jewelry for gay men. Or jewelry that is specifically for body piercings.
Any of these niche markets will have way more designs in sterling silver than in any other precious metal.
Why? It comes back to affordability.
When jewelry makers target a niche market, they are taking a bit of a risk because they’re not completely sure what the demand will be for the pieces.
Therefore, they are often unwilling to make pieces in more costly materials like gold or platinum for these markets.
Silver represents an “entry level” precious metal for niche markets. And another rule of marketing is that the more specifically you can target your customers, the better!
#6: You Can Feasibly Stock a Wide Variety of Sterling Silver Jewelry and “Split Test” Pieces
Going off our previous point, you can use the inexpensive price of sterling silver jewelry to your advantage in other ways.
Let’s say you want to get a better read on what your customer base is and what types of jewelry they are most interested in.
You could do a survey – but those aren’t reliable.
Why? Because what people say and what people do are often very different.
And when people buy a piece of jewelry, they are taking action in a very concrete way – they’re giving you their hard earned money!
So, you could buy 5-10 different pieces of jewelry targeting different niches, and then keep track of which pieces sell the best.
Even if a few of those pieces don’t sell well, you won’t have spent too much money, since sterling silver is pretty inexpensive.
And if you want to start buying more gold or platinum jewelry, you now have some hard data on what types of pieces sell in your shop for certain niches.
#7: Sterling Silver Pieces Help You Win Valuable Repeat Customers
Who are your best customers?
The ones who buy the most.
And usually, customers who buy a lot of jewelry from you do so over an extended period of time.
Unless you have very wealthy customers, it’s hard to have a ton of repeat business selling gold and other more expensive precious metals.
These customers love buying new jewelry – along with new clothes and shoes. However, they are also budget conscious.
So sterling silver jewelry can allow your customers to make repeat purchases from you without breaking their bank.
As the article “5 Reasons to Buy Sterling Silver Jewelry” states:
“The types of jewelry designs in silver are plentiful. This is largely because new artists can afford to cast more designs in silver than they can in gold or platinum.
This results in more new jewelry designers and new concepts in design within the marketplace.
Consumers enjoy the fact that they are not relegated to wearing the same thing day after day; they can quickly find additional sterling silver jewelry pieces to freshen their jewelry collections.”
Finale
We hope this article has given you some solid reasons to stock more sterling silver jewelry in your store.
Please use these tips to market your pieces well, target specific niches, and rake it more profits as a result!