Selling handmade jewellery online: why I am struggling and what is my plan?
Tags: Etsy, Marketing, Jewelry, Online Shopping, Handmade

I am a self-taught jewellery designer and make handmade resin jewelry with natural dried flowers. By this art I try to bring the beauty of nature one step closer to the people. And I believe wearing my handmade jewelries helps them feel more beautiful and confident and brings them more joy, motivation, and strength.

I started this art around 6 years ago after my husband and I moved to Trento, Italy in 2013. Back then, I used to go to the local markets and had several clients that really loved my art works and came every week to see me and also buy some pieces of my handcrafts. It was a great time in which I made several really good friends and loyal customers. I could easily sell 200€ in every market. This was very encouraging to me, so I had a lot of energy and courage to learn more, improve my work, and offer new designs and higher quality jewelry to my customers. No need to say that speaking Italian with my customers was one of the key factors in my success there. I will get back to this shortly and will tell you more why I mentioned it here ;-)

But then, my husband defended his PhD and got a really good job offer from a Portuguese company. So, we moved to Lisbon, the city of the hills and the sun with so many welcoming and kind people. As soon as I started to learn the language and make friends with the locals, the pandemic hit and stopped everything.

This was the time that I decided to move my business to the online world. I did some research and found that Etsy.com is one of the best platforms for selling my products. I opened my first online shop there and started creating my listings. I also became more active on Instagram and started interacting more with my friends and clients in my Instagram page (@nafisarts). But, it was not an easy journey at all. It requires a lot of energy and time to get more followers, to make them trust in you and your work, and convince them to buy from your shop. It becomes even more difficult to attract local customers mainly because I don’t speak Portuguese fluently and it is hard to communicate with the locals. Etsy promotions also haven’t been very successful and even though they bring some traffic to the shop, a very small portion of them lead in purchases. I think it is mainly because they can not feel the products and have to trust what you describe in your post, and the photos and videos that you share with them!

Knowing the issue, we decided to do something different for the Christmas period. This time, instead of paying again for Instagram or Etsy promotions we decided to give away some samples to the people living close to us as Christmas gifts. In the packages we put a small set of our earrings, with our visit card, and a catching message. Let’s hope that this solution works and helps to bring more traffic and purchases to our shop.

Some samples of NafisArts earrings to be gifted to our amazing potential clients

NafisArts Christmas gifts ready to be sent to the potential clients!

I will update you guys in a couple of weeks with the results. Until then, stay safe and happy holidays!