In 2022, when the global online jewelry market was pinned to a worth of $57.4 billion, the forecast also said that the online market would reach a valuation of $117 billion by 2027.
So based on post pandemic jewelry eCommerce trends, the space still holds promise – one that can grow further with the right conversion optimization tactics.
While working with online jewelry brands across the globe, we’ve consistently found certain practices to be particularly effective for jewelry businesses.
Here's a list of conversion tips that can support your cause if you've been wondering how to promote your jewelry business online.
15 Jewelry eCommerce Conversion Strategies for 2024
1. Pay special attention to technicalities & specifications
It’s a known fact that jewelry connoisseurs prefer unique pieces.
The preference could be about the material, the engraving, the sourcing or even the many ways a piece of jewelry can be worn.
Specifications that are considered important in jewelry eCommerce also include:
✔SKU or product number
✔Any disclaimers around available or applicable coupons
✔Limited pieces or special drops where coupons aren't applicable
✔Any possible differences between the product photo & every unique piece
Since jewelry naturally demands that people spend more than they do on other kinds of products, transparency around technicalities and specifications ensure shoppers’ trust—the most reputed online jewelry stores ensure to meet this condition across their shopping experiences.
Stone and Strand is a jewelry brand that throws a lot of light on several aspects like make, sourcing, diamond cut and markups in their product page copy.
2. Show proof of authenticity in your jewelry eCommmerce store
For eCommerce jewelry brands that either create original pieces or promote multiple designers under the same brand, proof of authenticity is crucial.
Typically known as a "letter of authenticity", this kind of paperwork increases the trust a shopper is likely to experience towards an online jewelry store.
Even established brands like Bvlgari ensure they issue digital authenticity, which even associated retailers feature while selling.
Considered among the more serious jewelry eCommmerce trends, authenticity cards typically carry:
✔A guarantee of the purchase date
✔A guarantee of when the piece was produced & aligned SKU number
✔Warranty window in case of manufacturing defects
✔A confirmation from the designer or jewelry company about the veracity of the piece
✔A thorough verification & elaboration of the materials used
✔Details about where the materials & stones have been sourced from
✔A high definition photo (ideally the photo corresponds exactly to the piece the customer is buying)
The clearer the authenticity of a product is, the easier a shopper may find it to appraise it and insure it later.
Some online jewelry stores like Aurate create separate sections on their website to talk about materials, their sourcing & manufacturing standards as well as fair pricing practices.
Here's a valuable read: Promote your online store in the USA - 15 unique ideas
3. Think up varied ways to bring in customization
Jewelry lovers are ready to place a premium on rare materials, original work by designers and even limited edition collections.
However, this does not take away from what customization still means to many of them – whether it’s fashion jewelry or fine jewelry, shoppers see more value in putting their money into customizable jewelry.
This is why online jewelry stores like Jennifer Zeuner ensures they have an exclusive line of customizable jewelry.
As an eCommerce jewelry brand, one of the best ways to sell jewelry online is to customize the following ways:
✔Pendant sets (with a single message divided between two pendants, can make an ideal gift between lovers or best friends)
✔Initials on pendants, rings or drop earrings
✔Names of individuals, cities or even pets on pendants
✔Customization for different parts of the same piece of jewlery (for example, if it’s a necklace, let shoppers bring together the chain, the pendant and even the overall look of the piece)
Jewelry brand Foundrae has created a short three-step customization quiz to make it easy for shoppers to “build your story”.
✔Customize through an on-call or in-person appointment (this works well for fine jewelry, which requires considerable investment as well as design precision)
Other jewelry eCommerce brands like Brooklyn Charm base a major part of their returns on having shoppers design their own jewelry—they also have superlative customer support where if a shopper emails, an in-house designer responds:
You’ might like reading: Jewelry Email Marketing: 40 Amazing Examples For Online Stores
4. Make gift-finding & gifting easy
Sometime ago, a JewelStreet research found out that 58% women like to be gifted jewelry.
Similarly a 2022 survey by National Retail Federation concluded that 41% were likely to gift jewelry on Mother’s Day.
What either of these jewelry eCommerce trends point to is the fact that this category makes for popular and well-loved gifts.
And this further means that as an eCommerce jewelry brand, you’ll have to introduce gifting and gift-finding if you already haven't.
Here are a few ways in which you can make gifting & gift-finding on your eCommerce store easy:
✔Make “gifting” a category on your primary homepage navigation (and ensure sub-categories look at seasonal gifts, bestsellers and even sale items)
✔Categorize gift options based on pricing (use segmentation to arrive at the prices each customer group prefers and is willing to stretch to)
✔Offer the option of personalizing within your gifting category (like David Yurman does, with a featured image to go with it)
✔Offer last minute gifting options (to attract shoppers, you may want to label them as “ready to ship” under the appropriate category)
✔Introduce gift cards of different valuations (offering a spectrum like $25, $50, $75 and upwards till about $500 can ensure more shoppers from your TG segments can consider buying)
Got a conversion problem at hand? Read: Why is your conversion rate dropping (& 36 ways to fix it)
5. Ensure sizing information is always accessible
Average eCommerce returns hover anywhere between 20% and 30% and one of the top reasons cited is size issues.
And while this is true for fashion, it also applies to online jewelry stores as well—why would people want to buy pieces that won’t fit them at all (unless it doesn’t matter if it’s free size)?
Here are a few to-dos to make sizing information easily accessible on your jewelry product pages:
✔Feature the sizes that are in stock (you can either make them clickable or place them inside buttons which when the shopper chooses, changes color – when clicked, a prompt can indicate whether the particular size has a low stock or is sold out)
✔Feature a link with a sizing guide (make the guide inclusive by featuring international size standards as well as sizes in different measurement metrics – even better if you can feature sizing tips for shoppers to figure measurements more precisely)
✔Offer additional information on gem & jewelry sizes (best done within the specifications sub-section)
You must also check out: Reducing Online Jewelry Store Cart Abandonment: 19 Proven Strategies
6. Focus on how well you highlight the materials used
When you’re attempting to have your shoppers convert on your jewelry eCommerce store, it becomes essential to think about what they’d like to know about what goes into a piece of jewelry.
Here are a few product description to-dos you may want to consider if you're figuring out the best way to sell jewelry online:
✔Use a descriptive style to evoke heightened imagination (when you tell shoppers what the materials and gems together can do to elevate their look, they will likely be more convinced – that’s how Catbird does it)
✔Amplify your brand voice with informational transparency(remember that competing brands could be using the same or similar materials to come up with their own distinctive creations – which then makes it important for you to tell shoppers how your brand is doing it differently – Aurate shows us how calling it a “story” and giving it a distinctive brand spin can help)
Here's some food for thought: Product Description Examples (& Ideas) for Online Jewelry Stores
7. Pay attention to photography in your jewelry eCommerce brand
It’s been proven that almost 93% shoppers give predominance to visuals before they even arrive at a purchase decision.
That great photography can help promote your jewelry business online is also supported by jewelry eCommerce statistics.
High intent pages on a jewelry site typically include the homepage, the category pages, landing pages (aligned with paid ads) and the about us page that elaborates on the brand or business.
To make the images across the storefront captivating, make sure you:
✔Combine use-context images with product-specific ones
✔Consider retouching - balancing the color, brightness, contrast and shadow effects can be key
✔Create mood-based shots
✔Feature photographs that alternately highlight the model and a piece of jewelry
✔Bring in labeled images for intricate products (for example, for a stackable ring set or for a set of ear studs)
Among the most repurable online jewelry stores, Mejuri takes this approach– in our example, it’s to do with cartilage piercings.
✔ Feature multiple age groups, genders and skin colors based on the kind of TG your business caters to
8. Make homepage navigation a top priority
The chances of increasing AOV on your jewelry eCommerce website improve only when you pay more attention to homepage navigation.
Baymard’s research has shown that 50% of sites perform poorly especially in the homepage and category sub-areas.
Since, by default, this is the page that’s most likely to appear for much of your audience, you need to ensure navigation here is accessible and self-explanatory.
Here are a few ways to ensure online jewelry stores can offer better exploration and discoverability on their homepage:
✔Make sure the primary navigation menu has all the major categories (with visual cues for shoppers to explore sub-categories)
✔Feature your top categories in a horizontal layout
✔Highlight categories preferred by your TG in separate blocks
✔Ensure your bestsellers across categories are clearly featured
✔Make the design intuitive enough to spot clickable elements easily
One jewelry brand that focuses on making homepage navigation easy and inspiring is Adina Eden.
Homepage on your mind? Dive deeper with: 9 Critical eCommerce Homepage mistakes (and Creative solutions)
9. Highlight what you do differently over competition
The online jewelry space has become increasingly crowded over the last few years.
And with it, the challenge of meeting customers exactly where they are, has grown too.
More brands are coming up with better reasons for shoppers to shop with them:
Some are catching up with the trend of curbside pickups.
Some offer more options on the international version of their site.
Some ensure their values are clearly known based on their investors’ voice.
Vrai, a sustainable fine jewelry brand, for example, offers a call-out of how actor-activist Leonardo Di Caprio is an investor in their business.
It immediately increases the value shoppers associate with the brand—one of the more crucial jewelry eCommerce trends that drive conversions:
Also read: 24 Scientific Strategies to Increase your eCommerce Conversion Rate
10. Make filtering & sorting a cakewalk
As exciting your collections and categories of jewelry might be, most shoppers arrive at your storefront with something distinctive in mind.
Even if they’re just exploring, they want the discovery process to be aided by the back-end so that they can move between choices easily.
Vrai, for example, ensures all their category pages feature a section on popular sub-categories as well as offer filtering & sorting options separately:
11. Get your customer service to focus on CLV
Given that 86% of shoppers are willing to pay more if they receive great customer service, it’s a sure shot way for online jewelry stores to capture those conversions.
However, because jewelry can often be a high-investment bargain, customer service has to do more than just answer immediate questions—it ideally should focus on building a customer’s lifetime value.
Building CLV through customer service is one of the jewelry marketing ideas you can consider:
✔Make the omnichannel experience seamless (for example, if a shopper has declined to take offers over a particular channel, make sure you don’t send them to the same shopper across other channels)
✔Ensure your customer support staff are well-versed (not just in how your brand is represented but also in how they can field questions on products, collections & technicalities)
✔Offer more self-help options (be it through featuring FAQ in your live chat or strengthening your blog by creating topics that are in fact questions or curiosities expressed by shoppers)
✔Mention your business hours clearly—and also clarify if support is likely to be delayed in certain seasons (like peak holiday season)
✔Feature FAQ in the primary menu itself—Soko offers a peek into how FAQ can be part of your non-transactional jewelry eCommerce links:
Here's a read worth exploring: How to go Omnichannel on a Budget (Strategies + Case Studies)
12. Finetune your social commerce strategy
An enhanced social commerce strategy can ensure a jewelry brand is able to establish more organic engagement with shoppers.
Be it about shares from close friends or relatives or commenting directly on product images, social commerce enables shoppers to directly engage with their favorite jewelry brand.
Here's how to promote your jewelry business online by optimizing social commerce:
✔Pay attention to the way images are laid out in your feed (the more brand congruence between the images, for example, on your Instagram feed, the smoother the visual discovery process is for the shopper)
✔Reduce form fields for when shoppers checkout through social (the good thing is that using analytics you can seek permission to autofill crucial details like name, address etc. – and keep only the most important fields to be manually filled out)
✔Incorporate the permanent cart feature (so that shoppers, when using the same credentials across social channels to log in, don’t have to deal with a changing cart every time – some businesses use a time window to feature the cart contents, within which if the shopper returns they’ll be able to access the items in the cart)
✔Monitor your communication channels consistently (quick responses across the most active channels would mean lesser likelihood of shoppers being distracted by offerings & discounts by other brands)
✔Start creating content on predominantly visual platforms like Pinterest (this can be especially beneficial if you're creating value-add content that window shoppers on such a platform would first like to read before converting)
Keep reading for more ideas: 15 Underutilized Social Media Ideas For eCommerce Brands
13. Make your limited time deals super attractive
Every shopper will vouch for the fact that they love a good deal – and jewelry connoisseurs will vouch for it a little more.
Placing limited time deals and offers on high-end, high worth jewelry can bring in the conversions if you can:
✔Drive a sense of aspiration (for example, if you’re launching a product line at a discounted offer, it makes sense to call it a “24 hour exclusive launch price” versus “20% off only for today”)
✔Use urgency to draw attention (bring in a super-short flash sale, let’s say, that lasts for three hours only – feature this on your storefront and ensure to reach out to warm leads two days prior and send reminder emails as well)
✔Create limited time special drops only for loyalists (this is one of the jewelry eCommerce trends that invariably see excellent conversion traction)
✔Create teasers for soon-to-be launched deals (this way you can offer them more control over making time to access the limited-time deal – CTAs like “set a reminder” and “block off time” can work well)
It just gets better with this read.
14. Offer a detailed self-design tool to enhance personalization
If you run a high-worth jewelry store or are planning to feature more expensive products on your website, featuring a detailed self-design tool can bring in more conversions.
The idea is to offer more control and uncompromising decision-making to the shopper who is already willing to spend—but without having to get on long-winded virtual calls.
Brilliant Earth, for example, features an in-depth “lab” where discerning shoppers can create their own rings, earrings and necklaces.
Alongside the choice of picking the desired stone, cut of stone and picking a desired price, the website offers a catalog of all available stones.
You must also read: How to Boost Fashion eCommerce Conversion Rate
15.Create compelling influencer/celebrity collabs
Given that influencer marketing is now a $2.1 billion industry, you've got to leverage it when you're wondering how to promote your jewelry business online.
One way to do this is to collaborate with celebrities or influencers to either launch a new line of products or draw attention to a limited drop.
Check out how Catbird does this—their most recent collab is with singer Phoebe Bridgers:
FAQ on online jewelry conversions
1. What is the conversion rate for eCommerce jewelry stores?
The average conversion rate for luxury and jewelry stores is typically around 1.46% – however, if research is to be believed, the conversion rate for jewelry businesses have actually increased by a little over 32%.
2. Is eCommerce jewelry a profitable business?
The online jewelry industry has seen a steady rise for the last few years, especially through the COVID-19 pandemic, and forecasts claim that it will be $645 billion by 2035.
The average profit margin for jewelry is typically anywhere between 25% and 75%.
3. How do I start an online jewelry brand?
In order to start your own online jewelry brand, the following are a few significant steps you’ll have to consider:
✔Consider market opportunities and find a niche
✔Identify your target audience clearly
✔Define the jewelry you’d like to make, sell or both
✔Figure out a trustworthy jewelry manufacturer
✔Start developing a brand image and voice
✔Strategize on a price point (based on audience & the profit margin you’d like to make)
✔Begin to market your brand (align with the channels you’d like to use most for sales)
4. Why should you sell jewelry online?
The most obvious answer to this would be to reach out to more number of customers, no matter what their location.
What's also true is that almost half the number of jewelry shoppers are less than 34 years of age—and Gen Z are naturally netizens who'd want to buy jewelry sold online. In fact, just under one in three Gen Z shoppers prefer to habitually make their jewelry purchases online.
To be able to reach this audience exactly where they're at, without having to shell a bomb, it's ideal that you too start selling jewelry online.
5. How do I attract customers to my eCommerce jewelry store?
Here are a few key steps we've seen work for online jewelry stores time and again:
- Speak the language of your target audience (observing the typical lifestyle of your TG can help you refine the language you use)
- Identify the most relevant marketing channels (for example, if you sell affordable lightweight jewelry, Facebook might be a better medium whereas if your pieces are more exclusive, showcasing them on more visual mediums like Instagram & Pinterest may work better)
- Prioritize onsite UX for discovery & checkout (highlight your bestselling categories on the homepage, make it easy to add-to-cart across the site and show an adequate numbers of guarantees and seals)
- Create a lightweight card or note to accompany your shipments (one that features your logo and ideally leaves a thank you along with a discount to trigger re-purchase)
Need your jewelry eCommerce store to shine more?
Most high-value precious jewelry eCommerce stores struggle to move beyond a conversion rate of 1%.
Why: user experience issues that cause friction for visitors.
And this is the problem ConvertCart solves.
We've helped 500+ eCommerce stores (in the US) improve user experience—and 2X their conversions.
How we can help you:
Our conversion experts can audit your site—identify UX issues, and suggest changes to improve conversions. And we won’t charge for this one.