With the abundance of online stores like Etsy and the popularity of local and online boutiques, starting a jewelry business is becoming one of the most popular ways to make money. If you’ve experienced success selling your jewelry at craft shows and markets, turning your side hobby into a small business may be the next step on your bucket list. In order to get your business up and running, there will be a few integral pieces of information you need to know, and one of the most important is “how much money is needed for start-up inventory?”
The answer to this question varies widely depending on what type of jewelry you sell, what resources you have, what kind of manufacturing you have available, and if you are interested in selling your products online, in a store, or both. Here are the 2 most typical scenarios, and the associated costs with each scenario.
With the abundance of online stores like Etsy and the popularity of local and online boutiques, starting a jewelry business is becoming one of the most popular ways to make money. If you’ve experienced success selling your jewelry at craft shows and markets, turning your side hobby into a small business may be the next step on your bucket list. In order to get your business up and running, there will be a few integral pieces of information you need to know, and one of the most important is “how much money is needed for start-up inventory?”
The answer to this question varies widely depending on what type of jewelry you sell, what resources you have, what kind of manufacturing you have available, and if you are interested in selling your products online, in a store, or both. Here are the 2 most typical scenarios, and the associated costs with each scenario.
The first type of common jewelry business is the home-based business. When you opt for this option, it’s much easier to start smaller, and build the business bit by bit as you go. For Carmella Ricciardelli of Mama Can’t Sing, she only allowed herself a conservative budget of $30 a week, and purchased most of her materials at antique stores and estate sales.
This type of business savvy is generally risk-free, but it also takes a long time to build up the business, and profits will be slower to grow than if you take out a small jewelry business loan, and manufacture all of your materials upfront. To determine exactly how much you will need for your home-based business, it’s important to do the research, and determine exactly the costs of the type of materials you will be using. If you sell beaded jewelry, for example, you can buy a lot more inventory at lower prices than if you sell jewelry made with precious stones.
If you are looking to build a more traditional brick and mortar type of jewelry business with an actual physical location, then it’s a little easier to determine start-up costs. After all, if you have people coming to your physical location, you will need jewelry on display, rather than a catalogue of jewelry to order, and you can typically get a number much more easily.
In most instances, if you are planning to start a jewelry store, the minimum and most conservative amount you should plan on for your start-up inventory is $20,000. Again, this is a minimum estimation of how much you will need in order to get your inventory, and this is provided you aren’t selling diamonds and gold. Costs only rise from there.
To start a jewelry store of this magnitude, it will be essential for you to get a small business loan. Keep in mind that not only will you want to include costs for your inventory, but you will also want to factor in costs for the building, furniture, display cases, employees, and insurance, to name a few.
For more information about getting a small business loan for your existing jewelry company, please contact us at Shield Funding today. For information on getting a loan without an existing business check out our private personal loan option.
