Etsy

After some browsing around and some thinking, I have joined an online community called Etsy. 

If you haven't heard of it, it is a community where people buy and sell handmade, vintage and supplies products. If you have heard of it, I would love to hear about your experiences and what you think about it. 

I have browsed some shops there and the artwork looks really nice and the prices are really good too. And the fact that you can pay with Paypal only makes it better. 

This small shop will be completely separate from byVellamo and the items I will sell there will be exclusive and one-of-a-kind or limited editions designed and handmade by myself. I will add some of my own designs to byVellamo, but in that case they will not be available on Etsy.

You can check it out and tell me what you think:

Jewelry set with Swarovski Pearls

I just made this set of ear-rings and pendant using a few Swarovski crystals and Swarovski Crystal Pearls.

Making

The pearls used in the Swarovski Fashion Jewelry collection are simulated pearls and are not natural. Crystal Pearls by Swarovski are pearls made with a crystal core. Their unparalleled harmonious and lustrous shimmer is achieved using a unique coating technology developed by Swarovski. It is the first production method in the world to combine the quality of a perfect crystal core with the exquisite beauty of a pearl coating.

Benefits 

Many simulated pearls offer some drawbacks. Contact with perfume or perspiration can cause plastic imitation pearls to lose their pearl coating. Because faux pearls are easily scratched, cleaning them can be challenging. Swarovski pearls, on the other hand, are washable and are not susceptible to damage from perfume or perspiration. They are also resistant to scratches. 

Qualities 

And as is the case with genuine, cultured pearls, the temperature of Swarovski pearls changes to reflect the temperature of the wearer's skin. Because this quality is one reason jewelry lovers cherish genuine pearls, the realistic color, luster and feel of Swarovski crystal pearls are major selling points. 

Inbound - Ountbound Marketing

I found this today and I thought it is very useful to keep it in mind. Not just for my case, but for many others out there.

Old ways of marketing seem to be working less and less efficiently, as this image proves, courtesy of Voltier Digital.
One of the most annoying "classical" ways of marketing is the cold call. It is very very hard to sell something over the phone to someone who has not asked to be called. Most people nowadays use searches online to find what they want.

About Facebook Ads

A few observations about Facebook ads, from the campaign I ran for byVellamo. The ad ran for about 2 weeks, it was limited for people using Facebook in Finland.

• impressions: the ad has shown up a total amount of 125,268 times, available only for viewers in Finland.
• clicks: it received 23 clicks.
• connections: out of the 23 clicks, 4 persons added the page to their favorites.
• spent: €21.45 in total

As a result, each click cost €0.93.

Something that I think is not too good in this case is that there is no control as to where the ad will show, although you can control who can see it. You can also control the appearance of your ad according to the interests of people, but in this case I believe it is not relevant.

From running the campaign for this page, I must say it was not worth buying Facebook ads. They are far more expensive than Google Ads and it is not a guarantee that the potential clients will even go to the website itself, which is of course the ultimate goal. In spite of the huge number of impressions, the number of clicks generated was small. The next experiment should be aimed at a more narrow audience.

Coming soon

About Murano

The whole purpose in starting the business is to bring jewelry which is not widely available in Finland. I have spent long hours combing the search results online and the shops in different cities in Finland and I have discovered that, with the exception of a few major companies, who have their own factories and designs, most of the shops around here have very similar jewelry to each other.

I have discovered by asking around in shops, that they don't have or have not heard of Murano glass.

(photo: wikipedia)

Murano is a series of islands linked by bridges in the Venetian Lagoon, northern Italy. It lies about 1.5 km north of Venice and measures about 1.5 km (0.93 mi) across with a population of just over 5,000. It is famous for its glass making, particularly lampworking.
Murano’s reputation as a center for glassmaking was born when the Venetian Republic, fearing fire and the destruction of the city’s mostly wooden buildings, ordered glassmakers to move their foundries to Murano in 1291. Murano glass is still associated with Venetian glass.
Murano's glassmakers were soon numbered among the island’s most prominent citizens. By the 14th century, glassmakers were allowed to wear swords, enjoyed immunity from prosecution by the Venetian state, and found their daughters married into Venice’s most affluent families. While benefiting from certain statutory privileges, glassmakers were forbidden to leave the Republic.
Murano’s glassmakers held a monopoly on high-quality glassmaking for centuries, developing or refining many technologies including crystalline glass, enameled glass (smalto), glass with threads of gold (aventurine), multicolored glass (millefiori), milk glass (lattimo), and imitation gemstones made of glass. Today, the artisans of Murano still employ these centuries-old techniques, crafting everything from contemporary art glass and glass jewelry to Murano glass chandeliers and wine stoppers.
The oldest Murano glass factory that is still active today is that of Pauly & C. – Compagnia Venezia Murano, founded in 1866.

(photo: wikipedia)

The Murano jewelry currently on the website contains original Murano glass from Venice, with silver filigree inside, which gives the glass a nice shine.

Supplies

Swarovski crystals beads, Murano glass, Swarovski pearls, cherry quarts gemstone beads, prehnite gemstone beads, coral beads, Swarovski pendants.

First steps

After setting up the website and purchasing a web shop, the first steps were to set up a Facebook page and a twitter account connected to the Facebook page.
Very important! Set up a Google Analytics account to be able to track the visitors coming to your website. I think I will address this in another blog post soon.

In order to gain the first Facebook fans, I invited my friends who I thought might be interested in the page to view it and like it.

• On Twitter, I searched for similar businesses and started following them. From my own experience, Twitter is not yet so popular in Finland, but it is getting more and more popular than it used to be. So I would say it is a service worth using and building an audience as well as read what others have to say.
• Facebook is the best social media website, probably the most popular place online where people talk about products and visit websites their friends recommend. It has huge potential to help your business and I have discovered that only few businesses (at least in Finland) try to make use of this enormous potential to reach out to people. At the time of this post, byVellamo has 73 fans on Facebook.
• One of my personal favorite ways of browsing is by using StumbleUpon recommendations. StumbleUpon is a very useful resource where you can select your interested and browse random websites connected to those interests from all over the world. After you create an account, you are free to add new web pages to the service. I have added byVellamo a few weeks ago and I am discovering that the number of visits coming through StumbleUpon is constantly increasing.

Purpose

I start this blog with the purpose of testing and analyzing different online and offline marketing options which I personally tested on my jewelry web shop and write about them here. If any of you find this useful or have some comments, I would love to hear about your own experience.

I will also try to keep track of designing and making jewelry techniques and add useful links which I might come across while browsing the web.

So, welcome to byVellamo blog!