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One of the underserved market niches in our modern world is tasteful, respectful and attractive religious jewelry. It’s an excellent market to go into if you’re a person of faith, or believe in honoring the values that our culture is based on. However, like any other business, it requires a certain level of planning and management to carry off successfully.
Getting project management training is a key element to success in any business, including jewelry sales. Like secular jewelry, religious jewelry has a seasonal sales aspect to it. For example, the festival of Easter, celebrating the resurrection of Christ, is a major sales period for crucifixes and crosses.
Unlike conventional jewelry sales, your likely range of products isn’t going to change too much from season to season – there will just be times when certain items sell better than others. For communities with a strong Catholic background, medals of patron saints are good items to stock. Do your homework, and talk to your local diocese about local church attendance figures, and their age demographics. Confirmation gifts and rosary bracelets, for example, tend to be given to Catholics at certain ages – if you have a good idea for how many families attending church have children in which age groups, you can make sure that you don’t fall short of something.
Likewise, if you’re ecumenical, and sell to people of multiple faiths, bar and bat mitzvah gifts have a similar purchase pattern. Again, some elementary research will help you set your stocking levels.
The next phase, once you’ve assessed your likely market base, is finding a good location. Being within walking distance of a church is usually good, but is less and less essential, now that shopping is moving to the internet. (Unlike clothes shopping, jewelry shopping on the internet, especially for things like medallions and bracelets, works well. There’s no need to see if everything fits appropriately.)
Whatever the location you get, make sure that you have a clearly visible and easily accessible display area. Lots of store front window space is good, but is not as essential as say, a clothing store. A good security system is absolutely essential to making your business work. With something as small and readily valuable as jewelry, shoplifting is always a problem, even for religious iconography. Recall also that, because of the nature of your client base, your advertising needs to be subtle – religion is meant to be handled with reverence and dignity, which puts constraints on the kinds of advertising you can do. On the flip side, word of mouth is very strong in the religious community.
Finally, coordinate with local community leaders about events. If the local Catholic high school is having a graduation, talk to them about becoming the vendor for graduation rings and jewelry. If the local youth ministry is talking about celibacy or purity rings, this is an opportunity for you as well. Like any business, a significant part of the planning and project management is data gathering about what your local community wants and learning how to provide it for them.
Above all else, have faith – not just in the Lord, but in yourself as a business person!
Look here for More project management training articles or for an extensive directory on related sites on: project management training.
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