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Can You Specialize in Just Earrings?
by Rena Klingenberg
Earrings are many people's favorite type of jewelry. There's something magical about the way earrings frame your face, raise your spirits, and add panache to anything you wear.
 They're a wonderful art form for a creative beader.
Many jewelry artists start out by making and selling only earrings (in fact, that's how I started out), and there's a good reason for that. Earrings tend to sell well, and they're basically "one size fits all".
Also, because they usually use only a small amount of jewelry components, they can be one of the highest-profit-margin lines in your inventory.
 But can you build a successful jewelry business around just earrings?
Yes - you can definitely become known exclusively as an earring specialist.
There are enough of us earring addicts around to keep you quite busy selling your creations, and there's power in specializing in a particular type of product.
Here are some potential advantages, disadvantages, and success tips for a jewelry business that specializes in just earrings:
Advantages of an earrings-only business:
 Lower costs - you need to buy components, displays, packaging, etc. only for earrings, not for all kinds of other pieces of jewelry too.
- You'll likely get lots of referral business, as your customers tell other people, "Oh, if you're looking for earrings, you've got to go see what that earring gal has!"
Disadvantages of an earrings-only business: 
- You may burn out on creating nearly everything in pairs.
- You'll miss out on sales to people who want to buy additional, non-earring pieces of jewelry.
Tips for a profitable earring business:
- Expand your customer base by offering a huge variety of earfindings (including several different types of clips, hooks, metal allergy styles, etc.), and changing out the earfindings at your customers' request to customize their earrings. It's a quick and easy thing for you to do, and people love this type of personalized care when they shop. In addition to your regular earring customers, this will gain you a base of fanatical repeat customers with "special-needs ears" who can finally have a great selection of earrings they can wear comfortably.
 Stock a huge variety of earring styles - pierced and non-pierced, from mini-posts to shoulder-dusting chandeliers - and everything in between.
- Offer unusual ear fashions that people have a hard time finding elsewhere - ear cuffs, single earrings, etc.
- Have a wide variety of price ranges.
- Carry earring styles for children.
- Have plenty of styles of teenagers.
- Advise customers as to the most flattering earring designs for their face and personal style.
 Offer an earring club with a "punch card" deal - such as buy 10 pairs of earrings, get the 11th pair free.
- Offer volume discounts when people buy multiple pairs of earrings at a time. Common discounts occur at 3 and 5 pairs.
- Create seasonal earring designs (prom, Valentine's Day, Fourth of July, Halloween, etc.), and start marketing them 4 to 6 weeks before the intended occasion.
If you're going to specialize in earrings only, then I recommend truly specializing in them. In addition to serving traditional earring customers with all sorts of tastes, also serve the vast market of people who have special earring needs but have a hard time finding anything suitable for them elsewhere.
 By having earrings for everyone, you'll have customers flocking to your display!
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