What makes a best seller?

I often wonder what makes one item in a store sell better that another. What is the secret that makes a product into a best seller? If I knew the answer to that I would be rich and spending my time traveling around the world. But I do have a few ideas that are of course only based on my own personal experience.

Exposure - This is the obvious reason. Last year I had my filigree hoops featured in etsy's holiday gift guides and they received tons of daily views. As a result I sold many pairs of these. But since these earrings were one of my best sellers even before this extra attention I know this is not the only reason.

Pictures - when selling online, pictures are the basic thing that sells your item. I have several items that were not selling well and after improving their pictures, they suddenly became some of my most popular items in the store. It's amazing what a good picture can do.

Timing - If your item fits a specific need at the specific time it is needed, it will sell well. Of course you don't always know what that need is. A few years ago I made a ring with some birds parading on it. I sold only a few and stopped making them. Last year I re-made it and listed it in my store, It sold so much better. It turns out birds are "in" right now and the ring became very popular. Same design, different time and it made a huge difference.

I think you need a little bit of each of these factors to make a best seller. If you have the right product at the right time with a great set of pictures and a bit of exposure to display it to the world, success will come for sure. What do you think? any other ideas on what make an item succesful?

Here are some of my best selling items in the past and present:

                

New colorful personalized jewelry

It's been a while since my last post but I've been busy with good things - working on new collections and preparing for the coming holidays season.

I'm exited to share the first few items from my rainbowmetal new collection. I opened rainbowmetal a year ago and to be honest I have not been able to give it my full attention. Handling 2 stores is not an easy task. But my head is just filled with ideas and plans for this store that are just waiting for me to find the time to create them. So I finally did and I am very happy with the results, hope you like it as well.

The new collection is all about personalized jewelry, that is of course made of colorful metal. After all, if you are going for a personalized pendant with your favorite word, name etc., why not make it in your favorite color as well?

So here are a few samples, many more will follow soon. Enjoy and feel free to comment and share your thoughts.

1. Personalized believe necklace

2. Personalized have fun necklace

3. Personalized faith necklace

4. Personalized forever necklace

Metalsmithing in hot summer days

I love my work. I enjoy sitting in my studio and working on new jewelry designs. Watching as simple wires and sheets transform into wearable jewelry pieces.

The only exception is summer! Summer is a real joy killer when it comes to metalsmithing. Soldering with hot fire is the last thing you want to do in such hot summer days!

In my previous studio I had no air conditioning so this was even more difficult. When I moved to my new studio, air conditioning was the first thing I installed. But even with the air condition, working with fire is still hot. So I find myself only working on orders I've received. New jewelry designs will have to wait just a little bit longer - until fall arrives.

Here are a few items I've created before the summer hit:

1. sterling silver and red Agate circle of flowers pendant

2. Big asymetric flower earrings with texture

3. 3 petals leaf - sterling silver long earrings

Green - my new favorite color?

My favorite color was always purple. But recently I find that more and more I am tending towards green. I found myself picking green items when shopping for clothes, bags, makeup and other things. So you can imagine what happened in my last visit to my gemstone supplier - many different shades of green beads and stones came back home with me!

I don't know if it's just a seasonal thing or a permanent change in favorites, but I thought my new favorite color of the moment deserves a blog post, don't you?

Maybe it's this HOT summer that makes me looks for cool and fresh looking colors. Green always looks refreshing and cool.

So here are a few of the green items I have created recently. Hope you like them as much as I do.

Chic green stackable thin bangle

Cute matte texture green earrings

Triangular green flower earrings

Floral teardrop earrings with a green stone

The funny story of my dragonfly earrings

I wanted to share a funny story about a dragonfly design I've been working on. To be honest, I don't like dragonflies too much in real, life but somehow in art forms they are just adorable. I have created several designs with a dragonfly center. I have a pendant, some hoops and a skinny bangle. For a while now I have been wanting to make a pair of dragonfly earrings with some dangling beads to add some colors to them. But the funniest thing happens every time I try to make these earrings. Every time I start working on a dragonfly I get a sale of one of my existing dragonfly designs. So I end up using the dragonfly I made to fill the order I received and the earrings don't get done. Once I tried making 2, just in case this happens again and guess what? I got 2 orders for dragonflies. What do you think is it just a strange coincidence or is someone trying to send me a message?

No picture of the earrings since they remain unfinished. If I ever manage to get them done, I promise to post a picture. 

New section in my blog - In a designer's eyes

I'm opening a new section in my blog that will be called - In a designer's eyes. In this section I will be sharing with you things that I love that were created by other designers in different fields.

I have been making jewelry ever since I can remember myself, but if someone told me I could no longer design jewelry, I would probably still choose a career in design. I just love good design in any field - interior design, fashion, houswares, industrial design etc.

Not that I think that being a designer makes me an expert on design but since I am a designer and this is my blog, everything I see is looked through my designer eyes and my design taste. Hope you'll like it as well.

I will start with something from my own field of expertise - jewelry. Though I make my own jewelry I still love and appreciate other jewelry artists that create unique jewelry works.  

I picked 2 jewelry designers that make some unique combinations of materials.

Donauluft combines metalwork with beading. I like how the connection between these 2 materials, metal and beads, looks together. Beading with seed beads is a lot of work (I should know, I have done this myself) and not always appreciated enough. I think the combination with the sterling silver upgrades the jewelry don't you?

My second pick is by 3squares who combines colorful fabrics in her metalwork. There are many ways to add color to sterling silver jewelry, some more traditional like adding gemstones and some newer and more innovative. I find the use of fabric to be an original and great way to add color and texture and to create something unique. Take a look:

  

Post earrings

As I said in a previous post I wrote, earrings are my favorite piece of jewelry.  You will probably never find me without a pair of earrings on.

One of the wonderful things about earrings is that there are so many different kinds of them and everyone can find something they like. There are hoops, chandeliers, dangling earrings and there are post earrings (or stud earrings).

There are many reasons people like stud earrings. Some people don't like to see the ear wire of the earrings and feel the design is more complete if it starts directly from the ear. Others just want to hide their ear lobe. And others might be sensitive to long or dangling earrings and simply prefer a very small stud earring that sits on the ear and doesn't move and bother them.

So basically stud earrings can be a tiny small dot or a large fancy piece. The possibilities are endless.

I have been experimenting with different styles of stud earrings and I really like the results so far. Here are just a few samples of what I've got so far. More designs will be developed and listed in the near future.