How to Sell Jewelry Online: A Store Owner's Guide to Shopify, Wix and Marketplaces

This guide is for people who already sell jewelry: an independent store with a case full of inventory, or a brand that sells to stores and wants to sell direct too. If you're looking to sell a piece of your own jewelry, a local jeweler or a reputable buyer is the better route, and this isn't that guide.

Selling jewelry online is not hard to start. It is hard to do well, because jewelry asks more of a website than most products. Pieces are small, expensive and often one of a kind, customers can't touch them, and a single order can be worth thousands. Below is how to set it up so it actually sells, in the order we would do it.

Decide what goes online first

You don't have to put the whole case online on day one, and most stores shouldn't. Start where online buyers already look and where your photos and data are best.

• Bridal. Engagement ring buyers tend to research online before they visit. Even when they buy in person, the website is often how they choose which store to visit.
• Best sellers and core styles. Studs, tennis bracelets, plain bands and chains you always restock. These are easy to photograph once and sell many times.
• Pieces with a story. Estate, custom and designer pieces you can describe well.

Decide early how you'll handle price. Many stores show prices on most pieces and put a "book a consultation" button on high-ticket bridal instead of a cart. Either works. Hiding every price usually doesn't, because shoppers comparing stores move on.

Choose where to sell

There are three realistic routes, and many stores use more than one.

Shopify

Shopify is the most common choice for jewelry stores that want a full online store. It has a large set of jewelry themes and apps, handles payments and fraud screening, has its own point of sale if you want it, and connects to Google Shopping and Instagram. You own the store, the customer list and the brand. The trade-off is that you have to bring the traffic yourself.

Wix

Wix, with Wix Stores, suits stores that already have a Wix website or want something simpler to manage. You can sell products, take payments and take bookings on the same site, which is handy if appointments are part of how you sell. If your site is already on Wix and working, adding a store there is usually faster than starting over somewhere else.

Marketplaces

Etsy, eBay and Amazon bring buyers who are already shopping, which is their big advantage. They also take fees on every sale, set the rules for how listings look, and keep the customer relationship. Etsy suits handmade and vintage. eBay has a long history with estate and pre-owned jewelry. Marketplaces work well as an extra channel for the right inventory, and less well as the only home for a fine jewelry store.

A simple rule: if you have a storefront and a name locally, build your own store on Shopify or Wix first, and use marketplaces for the inventory that suits them.

Keep stock in step with the store

This is the problem that catches jewelry stores out. You sell a one of a kind ring at the counter on Saturday, and on Sunday someone buys it online. Now you're calling a customer to cancel an order.

The fix is to make your point of sale the record of what you have, and make the website follow it. If your website and your point of sale are the same system, that's built in. If they are separate, such as Lightspeed in the store and Shopify or Wix online, you need a connection between them.

Aurix can import from Lightspeed manually or on a schedule you choose and publish to Shopify or Wix, matching pieces by SKU. A point of sale is optional: you can also start from a Shopify catalog or a spreadsheet. Our guide to syncing Lightspeed inventory to Shopify covers how the matching works.

Photos decide most of it

Online, the photo is the product. The customer can't pick the piece up, turn it in the light or try it on, so the photos have to do all of that. For each piece, aim for:

• A clean catalog shot on a plain background, sharp enough to zoom.
• A worn shot, so the customer can judge size.
• A side view and close details for rings and anything high-ticket.

Most stores have the opposite: one counter photo per piece, taken over years in different light. A photographer can fix that at a cost, and our article on jewelry product photography pricing covers what that typically runs. Aurix makes finished catalog and worn photos from the photos you already have, with the stones, metal and setting held to the original, and by default you approve each one before it publishes. For the technical side, see Shopify product image size for jewelry.

Listings that answer the customer's questions

Inventory codes make terrible titles. "14KW 1.00CT RD DIA SOL RING" means everything to your staff and nothing to a customer or to Google. Each listing needs:

• A title written the way people search: 14K White Gold 1.00ct Round Diamond Solitaire Ring.
• A short description that says what the piece is and how it wears.
• Specifications: metal, stones, carat weights, measurements, size.
• Honest disclosure for lab-grown, treated or plated pieces.
• A sensible category, so the piece shows up in the right collection and filter.

Our guide to jewelry product descriptions that sell has a template and examples.

Give customers a reason to trust you

A customer spending $2,000 online with a store they've never visited needs reasons to believe you. Most of them are things a good store already does:

• Show who you are. Your store's history, where you are, who works there, with real photos.
• Clear policies. Returns, sizing, shipping and insurance, written plainly and easy to find.
• Grading reports and appraisals listed on the product page when they come with the piece.
• Reviews from real customers, on your site and on Google.
• An easy way to talk to a person, such as booking a visit or a video call.

For high-value orders, use your platform's fraud screening, insure shipments and require a signature on delivery.

Help people find you

A new online store gets no traffic on its own. The channels that tend to work for jewelry stores:

• Google Business Profile. Keep it complete, post to it, and answer reviews. Local buyers start here.
• Google Shopping and free product listings. Both Shopify and Wix can feed your products to Google.
• Email. Your existing customers are the easiest online buyers you'll ever get. Send them new arrivals and seasonal edits.
• Instagram. Show pieces worn, show the store, show the bench.
• Content. Pages that answer real questions, such as a ring size guide or how to choose a band, bring in buyers early in their research.

Our jewelry store marketing guide goes further on each of these.

The first 30 days

1. Pick your platform. If you have a working Wix site, start there. If you're starting fresh and want room to grow, start on Shopify.
2. Choose your first 50 to 100 pieces: bridal, best sellers and a few showpieces.
3. Get the photos to one standard: one clean catalog shot and one worn shot each, the same size and shape.
4. Write proper titles and descriptions for those pieces.
5. Connect your point of sale, or set a routine for updating stock, so a piece sold in the store comes off the site.
6. Write your policies and an about page with real photos of the store.
7. Connect Google Business Profile and Google's product listings, and tell your email list.
8. Add the next batch of pieces every week.

Where Aurix fits

Aurix was built inside a 44-year family jewelry store to do the slow part of this: the photos, titles, descriptions and categories for every piece, and keeping the store and the website in step. It works from the photos and product data you already have, imports from Lightspeed or Shopify, and publishes to Shopify or Wix. By default nothing publishes until you approve it. If you're working through a full catalog, our guide to getting your whole jewelry catalog online walks through the process step by step.

Try it on your own photos

Try 10 photos free, no card needed, at app.getaurix.ai. After that, plans start at $99 a month: Starter $99, Growth $199 and Scale $399, month to month. If you'd rather see it first, book a 20-minute walkthrough. We run it on sample pieces.