There are tons of reasons why you might be curious about how to start a bracelet business.
It's super easy to start with, doesn't require any special skills or education to begin with, needs bare minimum investment, can be started from home or a micro office and can be started as a side hustle.
That said, determining how to start a bracelet company doesn’t need to be a challenge, but there are a few considerations that you will need to address before you can call it done. No matter how small or big a business is, it needs to be part of an entity structure and need to follow a certain set of rules and regulations set up by the authorities.
All these steps to set up a business are important and it is better to take care of them in the beginning itself. There is no point going through all the trouble of crafting your bracelets and charms, and finding out later that the whole thing doesn’t make any business sense.
To get the thought process started, answer the following questions first:
- Do you have creative bracelet designs that you want to share and sell?
- Do you see that the bracelets and jewelry accessories niche is underserved in your target market?
- Do you have someone in your network who is great at bracelet design and wants to partner with you?
- Do you want to have it setup as a full time business or a side hustle?
Whatever the reason is that you want to start your own small business, make sure that you should be able to outline it in a business plan from the beginning itself.
But what exactly do you need to do to get your bracelet business idea off the ground?
In this guide, we’ll help you navigate through the steps to formally set up your bracelet business. We will cover topics such as identifying the market opportunity and product market fit, registering your business, setting up finances, figuring out all necessary permits and licenses and marketing your bracelet business.
Read on to learn everything you need to know.
The first thing you need to finalize is the product selection for your bracelet business. It is a basic common sense that you can make money only when someone buys your bracelets. It won't matter if you like your bracelets and are under the impression that they are the world's best bracelets.
We are not saying that you can’t make great bracelets, but the rule of thumb in a business is something called as a product market fit. For a business to succeed, you need a product that can serve a target market. If you do not know about your product or the market, it will be next to impossible to make a business out of it.
Let's get started by jotting down the available options.
The product
We need to first consider the options available to us for the product offering. As a product bracelet can be in the wishlist of a customer for many different reasons:
- As a jewelry accessory
- To raise awareness and funds
- Yoga bracelets
- Energy healing jewelry
- Fashionable accessory
All of the above reasons will give you a completely different kind of product set. For example, you can consider a gold bracelet as a jewelry accessory but a livestrong silicone bracelet is a completely different product altogether. Both are bracelets and you can make your own bracelet company for either of two.
But the main thing is that you need to decide which way you want to go. You can’t expect a customer to walk into a store ( physical or ecommerce) with a $200 gold bracelet sitting next to a $2 silicone bracelet. It wont make any branding sense and will dilute your branding and marketing efforts for your bracelet business.
The market
Once you have decided on the product that you wish to sell, the next step is to identify the target market for that product range. The things that you need to consider is:
- Who will buy the bracelets?
- Where do they live?
- Will the bracelet orders be a gift or self use purchase?
- What is the price that the customer will be willing to pay for the bracelets?
- How is your bracelet different from the competition?
- How does your customer prefer to make a purchase, online or offline?
- What's your story?
- Why will the customers tell their friends about your bracelet?
All of the above two steps in identifying the bracelet product range and the target market, will give you a much better idea about the product market idea for your bracelet business opportunity.
You may wonder why you need a business plan for your small bracelet business, but there are a ton of advantages to having it set especially in the beginning stages when you are actually looking for how to start a bracelet business.
We agree that the bracelet business isn’t a complicated business as such. Thus your business plan may not be a complex plan with every tiny bit of detail as you would need for a complex business idea.
As long as it covers a few basic elements, it should be okay. The goal is to get you started with your bracelet business with a plan in mind, rather than starting with just the gut feeling. Additionally, the business plan need not be set in stone and grow alongside your business.
A good business plan will help you strategize decisions and will help you make your business successful.
As a part of your business plan, one thing that you will need to decide is what your business model will look like. Some of the options to consider are as follows:
Your own bracelet line:
This option is valid if you are a designer yourself or have a business partner who can design stylish bracelets. By choosing this option, you will implicitly choose to start from scratch and craft bracelets by sourcing beads, strings, cords, charms etc. The entire product cycle will be in your hands.
You will have to design, craft, distribute the bracelets on your own.
Wholesaling other bracelet brand products:
If you have an expertise in business to business sales & marketing, this option is an amazing business opportunity. You can partner with major brands and then sell the bracelets to the retailers while pocketing a decent profit.
Retailing bracelets from other companies:
If a physical store or an online store is something that you have a passion for, then being a bracelet retailer is a great option for your business idea. You can get the bracelets from distributors and then sell them in your store at a decent margin.
Dropshipping:
One of the most popular options today is to start your own bracelet dropshipping store. You can choose a set of products from a dropshipping supplier and then spend all your efforts towards sales and marketing.
Once you get the orders from your customers, you can let the supplier know and they will ship the product directly to your customer. This way you wont be even touching the products and be part of any logistics.
That said, it is also the lowest cost business model wherein you can start in less than 100 dollars.
Private label:
Getting your own private label is also an option that you can consider. In this business model, you will need to find a manufacturer who will be ready to brand the bracelets in your brand name.
To the consumer, the manufacturer name won't be available and it will be a product that is in your brand name.
Once you have identified your option, you will have a much better idea of how you want to sell your bracelets.
You can consider the following 10 product options for your bracelet business:
- Bangle bracelets
- Charm bracelets
- Tennis bracelets
- Link bracelets
- Silicone bracelets
- Yoga bracelets
- Chakra bracelets
- Cuff bracelets
- Beaded bracelets
- Chain bracelets
You can also plan to add services such as personalization, repair, and renew the bracelets for an increase in revenues.
Not as fun as the above 2 steps, but certainly an important one. Just like you have your own birth certificate, SSN, car insurance, health insurance etc., your business will be another living entity and will have identification and insurance of its own.
That said, you will need to make sure that your business is registered and follows all rules and regulations as set forth by the authorities. Even if you plan to run your bracelet business from home, you will need to make sure about your obligations with the local chamber of commerce. Just a quick visit should get you on the right track.
Depending on where you are located and the business model you decide, you may be legally required to obtain certain permits and licenses before you can start your own bracelet business. This is an important step and you would want to make sure that all the things are covered and there won't be any problem in the future.
Two things that you will need to consider are listed below:
Registering a business name
As you already know, you will need a name for your business. Unfortunately, you can’t just choose any name you like. You will need to make sure that the name is not in use by any other person and is also not a trademark of other companies.
You can check the availability of the name by visiting the state website.
Tip: If affordable, hire a brand consultant to help you get creative and set you up for an outstanding business name.
Decide on a business entity
As an entrepreneur, you need to follow a certain organizational structure to be compliant with the regulations set by the government authorities. This structure affects tax, compliance and other legal requirements, it is an important step to tick when starting a business.
You need to plan ahead and choose from the following options:
- A sole proprietorship
- Limited liability company (LLC)
- General partnership
- Corporation
Generally, in the beginning a sole proprietorship is an obvious choice and a popular legal entity structure. It is the simplest and easiest way to get started. You can transition to another entity structure as your business grows.
Tip: Consider consulting an attorney or a qualified professional for this step, as their experience will be extremely valuable. They will be able to help you with everything that you need to have to be compliant with everything.
This step would have come up as a part of business plan preparation. If you did skip it at that point of time or didn’t look into it all, now is a perfect time to nail it down. The idea of this step is to make sure that you understand what the unit economics of your business will look like.
In the beginning, you may launch your bracelet business from home and do pretty much the full thing on your own. But as you scale and your business grows, you will not be able to do everything yourself. Thus when you hire external help or invest in infrastructure, you need to be well aware of your business’s financial health.
You will need to understand what you will have to pay right away, what can wait and what will be a recurring expense. The different types of costs that you will need to consider are as following:
- Fixed costs
- Variable costs
- Marginal costs
- Sunk costs
Once the business starts getting customers, you will need to make sure that your personal finances are well separated from the business expenses. It will be tempting to begin your bracelet business with your personal account itself.
In the beginning, it will actually be okay to spend money for things like buying a domain for your bracelet business, registration fees, licenses and permit costs etc. But once the business scales, it will become extremely difficult to be on top of finances and thus it is better to separate the expenses altogether.
You can start the process by getting a separate bank account for your business. You can choose a business checking account to begin with. Additionally, a business credit card can also come in handy for day to day expenses.
Additionally, it is a fact that you will need money to make money. There will be a limit to which you can extend your business using personal funds. Thus there surely will come a time where you may feel that an external fund could help you scale your business as per your projections.
Worry not, this is the case with every other entrepreneur out there and your bracelet business is no exception. Luckily there are a ton of options available for you to secure external funds.
We have listed a few options to consider:
- Friends and family
- Angel investor
- Venture capital
- Short term business loan
- Small business loan
- Credit card
By now you should have a bracelet business that is setup and ready to make sales.
But who would sell your bracelets to? How will they know that you are ready to sell? How will you plan to get paying customers for your bracelets?
These are the questions that you will now need to answer as a part of your bracelet business marketing plan. The success of your bracelet business will now depend on how well you can do marketing for your business.
Before you can start writing your marketing plan, you need to get some marketing fundamentals sorted out first. These are also called as the four Ps of marketing:
Product:
Are your bracelets marketable? Is the product offering well defined and has a clear product market fit that you have thought about ?
Price:
What is the price that a customer will be willing to pay for your bracelets? Do you want to get into the race to the bottom price and sell the cheapest bracelets competing with local mall kiosks and rest area shops? Or do you want to have designer bracelets that can give competition to Tiffanys?
Whatever it is, you will need to define a price point and plan it accordingly.
Promotion:
Consider where you will be promoting your bracelets. Will it be just digital marketing? Will you be using influencer marketing for your bracelets?
Do you plan to partner with other businesses? For example, if you plan to sell chakra bracelets or any energy healing bracelets, you can partner with a couple of yoga studios and leverage their customer base. Agreed, you will need to share your profits with them, but in the end, you will be able to make far more profit than doing it all alone.
Place:
You need to find out where the customers expect to find the bracelets that you have to sell. Do they expect to find them in stores and not purchase them online? Are they okay in buying them online?
Once you have defined the place, make sure to align your marketing strategy to acquire customers accordingly.
After you have a clear understanding of the above fundamentals of marketing, you can start marketing your bracelet business.
- Email marketing
- PPC marketing such as Google Ads, Facebook Ads
- Instagram marketing
- Tiktok marketing
- Traditional marketing
- SEO
- Local guides
- Online review platforms
All the hard work you put into the marketing, along with the meticulous planning you have done in setting up your business, will do wonders and you will surely be a proud owner of a thriving bracelet business.
Being your own boss by starting a bracelet business will surely be a life enriching experience with its own ups and downs. It may feel overwhelming to begin with.
But, if you plan it well and complete each step carefully, it will become easier as you move to the next step.
Make time to attend exhibitions, meetups and networking opportunities. It will help you in getting to know a lot of other entrepreneurs that you can reach out to for help.
We hope that the steps above will help you in your entrepreneurship journey. We wish you the best of luck and can’t wait to hear the stories of what you’ll build.
