Jewelry Reselling: Mastering Your Metrics! - Episode #87

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Jewelry Resellers Podcast, your go-to source for all things shiny, sparkly,

[00:00:06] and of course profitable. I'm your host Desiree and I'll be your guide on this dazzling

[00:00:11] journey through the world of reselling jewelry. We'll be diving deep into the art and science

[00:00:17] of reselling, uncovering valuable tips, insider secrets, and sharing stories from successful

[00:00:24] jewelry resellers. We'll explore market trends, industry news, and even discuss how to find

[00:00:31] those hidden gems just waiting to be discovered in thrift stores, estate sales, and beyond. So

[00:00:37] if you're dreaming of turning your hobby into a hustle or if you're a seasoned pro looking

[00:00:42] to stay at the top of your jewelry reselling game, join me each week for insights, stories,

[00:00:49] and more on the Jewelry Resellers Podcast.

[00:00:54] All right, welcome back jewelry friends. Hello, my name is Desiree and I am your Jewelry Reselling

[00:01:02] Bestie. Now today we're going to talk about some things that surprisingly I haven't really

[00:01:07] touched upon too much, but the inspiration for today's episode came from an email that I got

[00:01:14] where someone who is a loyal listener to the podcast had some questions about average sale

[00:01:22] price, listing goals, and sell-through rate, and things like that. So we're going to talk

[00:01:28] about that today because I think as it relates to us as jewelry resellers, the numbers are going

[00:01:34] to be very different compared to other niches or other categories of resellers. All right,

[00:01:42] so I want to cover that to the best of my ability and I also want to share with you some of the

[00:01:50] numbers and some of the goals that I had and some of the goals that, you know, and the numbers that I

[00:01:54] have. So you can figure out what's going to work best for you and your business. Now remember there's

[00:02:01] going to be a lot of variables and a lot of factors as it relates to figuring this stuff out

[00:02:06] because not all of us sell the same exact items. And of course, you know when it comes to

[00:02:12] jewelry, the prices can vary quite a bit depending on what type of jewelry you sell, whether it's

[00:02:18] costume, vintage, antique, luxury, or anything else. All right, so I want to at least give you

[00:02:28] kind of a framework so you can figure out these numbers and what's going to work best for you.

[00:02:34] All right, so you know before we always get into the episode, I like to remind you to make sure you

[00:02:41] head on over to our website which is jewelry resellers podcast.com because over there you can listen to all

[00:02:48] the past episodes. You can also sign up for our weekly newsletter and when you do that you will get a

[00:02:55] list that covers the 20 best-selling vintage jewelry brands that I think all resellers should know.

[00:03:01] So it's really helpful whether you're a beginner or if you've been doing this for a while because

[00:03:06] all of the brands that I list on that document are items that I have sold and I know they sell

[00:03:16] really well and also from doing my own research, those are the brands that you always want to keep

[00:03:21] an eye out for when you are outsourcing your jewelry inventory. Now if you got last week's newsletter,

[00:03:28] you may have noticed that I made a little tiny announcement and that was I would love to meet

[00:03:37] you in Las Vegas. I am excited to announce that I will be one of the speakers at this year's Boss

[00:03:45] Reseller Remix and that's happening in the spring of 2025. So tickets go on sale December 1st and I will

[00:03:53] have a discount code for you. So if you are going to be in Las Vegas for that event, I would love to meet

[00:04:02] you, hang out, talk about jewelry and whatever else. All right, so I'm really looking forward to it. I am

[00:04:08] thrilled and excited to be one of the speakers and if you have not heard of this reseller conference,

[00:04:14] I will have a link for you in the description of this video and if you're listening, I will have a

[00:04:22] description or I will have a link in the show notes for you. All right, so remember tickets go on sale December 1st

[00:04:29] and I will have a discount code for you. So also keep an eye out for that. All right, so let's go ahead and get

[00:04:37] into today's topic. So like I said, the inspiration for this episode came from an email and so what I

[00:04:46] did is I went through the email because I do have permission to share the questions but I don't want

[00:04:52] to say anyone's name so I'm just going to focus on the questions that they had and then I'm going to do

[00:04:58] my best to answer them and the thing is to I want to preface this by saying I'm going to share the

[00:05:08] numbers that you know I was doing when I was at the height of being a jewelry reseller. If you do not

[00:05:16] know, I have scaled back quite a bit as it relates to reselling because I'm moving into doing other

[00:05:23] things and so I still do jewelry reselling but I just don't do it at the levels that I was doing it

[00:05:31] probably about a year ago. All right, but I'm going to share with you the numbers that that you know the

[00:05:37] goals that I had and then we'll talk about what I think is a good target but again it's all going to

[00:05:45] depend on your inventory. It's going to depend on your knowledge and it's going to depend on what your

[00:05:50] individual goals are for your business as well as for your lifestyle. Okay, so the first question I

[00:05:58] got in the email was what is a decent target number of listings per day one should shoot for in order to

[00:06:07] average one to two sales per day? All right, in the clothing world we were always told to shoot for five

[00:06:15] listings per day to satisfy the algorithm. All right, so here is what I have learned as it relates to being

[00:06:23] a full-time jewelry seller and making jewelry sells every day and the short answer is yes. From my

[00:06:30] experience you need to list every single day in order to get sales every day. Now I'm going to throw out

[00:06:38] a caveat because just because you're listing so many items per day that is not an automatic guarantee

[00:06:46] that you're going to make sales every single day because remember we need to list jewelry items that

[00:06:54] people actually want and are willing to buy and we also have to make sure that what we're listing

[00:07:04] listing is not just stuff for the sake of listing because I have been caught in that trap too. All right,

[00:07:12] and so there's been times very early on where I was just listing stuff just to list just to satisfy the

[00:07:23] algorithm and then what happens is you end up having a bunch of junk in your store that nobody wants

[00:07:29] or you end up having to sell it at a very low price just to get rid of it and then you're not really

[00:07:37] making the money that you want to make or you're working way too hard for too little money. All right,

[00:07:43] so remember the thing that we want to always focus on is our knowledge and our education as it relates

[00:07:54] to the jewelry that people are looking to buy. Now I can say in general most people are looking for vintage

[00:08:05] jewelry, most people. However, not everybody is looking for that. So I think too what was helpful for me

[00:08:16] was focusing on a sub niche or a sub category as it relates to jewelry, but this would change depending

[00:08:24] on what I was able to source and what I was able to find because I'm telling you, you can't always find

[00:08:31] the exact same types of jewelry. Like you can always find jewelry. Like that's not really challenging once

[00:08:40] you kind of figure out your sources and your own, you know, sourcing strategy, but you may not always

[00:08:46] find the same type. Okay. Sometimes I would get new modern pieces. Sometimes I would get a bulk box of

[00:08:53] vintage stuff. Sometimes it would be a mixture. So again, it just depends. All right. So going back

[00:09:02] to the question, what is a decent target number of listings per day one should shoot for in order to

[00:09:08] average one to two sales per day? I'm going to say at minimum 10 items per day. Now, does that fit

[00:09:17] in your sourcing, you know, um, your sourcing limits or your sourcing amounts? Does that work with your

[00:09:28] lifestyle? Like, can you actually list 10 items a day? Can you schedule 10 items a day? Can you draft

[00:09:36] 10 items a day? When I was making the most money that I was making as a jewelry reseller at the height of

[00:09:44] what I was doing? I was listing 30 items per day. I was listing 30 jewelry items per day and I would,

[00:09:51] you know, schedule them out. So I would always do them like the night before. And then, uh, that day

[00:09:56] I would, you know, I would have them go live. I would publish those listings. And that is what worked

[00:10:02] for me. And I was, when I was listing 30 per day, I was averaging anywhere from five to 12 sales per day.

[00:10:11] Sometimes I had more and sometimes I had less, but I usually always at the very minimum would have five

[00:10:18] to six sales per day. Now, this is this, these were the numbers for me. All right. And it didn't,

[00:10:27] it wasn't always that way in the beginning. I was listing like 20, I think I did 20 or 25 items a day.

[00:10:34] And I was lucky to sell one or two because I didn't really know what I was doing. And like I said,

[00:10:40] my inventory would fluctuate to some degree. All right. So again, your listing goal is going to be

[00:10:48] contingent upon what your, you know, sourcing goals are like how much inventory can you source to meet

[00:10:58] the listing goal? And then are you listing items that people actually want to buy? And then are you

[00:11:05] listing items that have a good sell through rate? And we're going to talk about that too.

[00:11:10] All right. So there's a lot of things to think about and jewelry is, it's not really an easy

[00:11:16] category, so to speak, because there's so much to learn just like in every category, I guess,

[00:11:22] but you can figure out what works for you and what is accessible to you as it relates to your sourcing.

[00:11:34] And then once this is, this was the really nice thing that I learned is like, once I started doing

[00:11:40] this, I started having regular repeat buyers who would always look and see what new stuff I had,

[00:11:47] because they were familiar with the type of jewelry that I was listing. All right. So

[00:11:54] again, a lot of this is going to depend on you. A lot of this is going to depend on what you can

[00:12:00] source, how much you can source and how much you can list. All right. So I hope that answers that

[00:12:07] question. Okay. So the next question in this email is what is a decent newbie target average sale price

[00:12:16] when starting with jewelry jars, simply for the bulk. I like most people would love to up my game to the

[00:12:25] good stuff like gold and precious gems, but listing X amount of day of that would be incredibly expensive

[00:12:33] just starting out. All right. So we're now we're focused on if you're just getting started,

[00:12:40] what is a good average sale price. Now here is what it was for me. I wanted my average sale price to be

[00:12:51] no less than $20. Did I always have that? No. Did I have to sell a lot of stuff under that? Yes.

[00:13:00] All right. But now I really try to do no jewelry pieces less than $25. Now, I don't know if you all

[00:13:11] remember that episode. It was very early on when I interviewed Jen and she was talking about the

[00:13:18] realities of a profitable jewelry reselling business. Her average sales price is $75. All right. Because

[00:13:25] she deals with the higher end vintage pieces. So again, this is going to depend a lot upon what you

[00:13:33] can find. Now, here's something I want to throw out. And I remember when I replied to this person in the

[00:13:39] email, I said, there's creative ways that you can do that. If you're trying to get an average sale price

[00:13:45] of let's say $20 and you're buying jewelry jars, a lot of times the pieces in those jars are not quite worth

[00:13:53] $20. And sometimes they may not be worth even 10. But what I suggested was you can make bulk lots of

[00:14:06] jewelry to kind of bump up your average sale price, right? So if you had 10 necklaces in a lot or 20

[00:14:14] necklaces in a lot, then you can definitely sell that for a minimum of $20 or $25 or whatever.

[00:14:21] All right. So remember, we're talking about someone just getting started and someone sourcing their

[00:14:28] jewelry from things like jewelry jars, maybe buying bulk lots on, you know, maybe shop Goodwill or

[00:14:36] something like that, maybe buying those jewelry boxes, you know, the boxes that have tons of jewelry

[00:14:42] in it. So if that is going to be your main form of sourcing, I want to say you probably,

[00:14:51] I mean, yeah, you could shoot for an average sale price of $20, but it's going to be really difficult

[00:14:57] to get it with, with that being your only way of sourcing.

[00:15:04] Now you may look out and find some pieces where maybe there's a piece in that jar or in that box

[00:15:10] that's worth 40, 50, $60, right? But I'm going to tell you the majority of the pieces you find in,

[00:15:16] in those jars are not going to be, you know, super high end pieces. And if they are,

[00:15:22] they could be damaged or broken or something like that. All right. So what you want to do

[00:15:27] is increase your knowledge and increase your education. So that way you can find better quality

[00:15:35] jewelry, or you can find better quality pieces. Now you may have to do that on a piece by piece

[00:15:41] basis. You may not be able to find bulk, lots of that type of stuff just yet. All right. But again,

[00:15:49] like I said, because when, when I thought about, um, when I figured out and did all the math,

[00:15:55] when you think about your selling fees, um, taxes, um, promotions, if you, if you do promotions,

[00:16:04] and we're talking about eBay here, um, once you take all of that into the account, plus, you know,

[00:16:11] the time it takes me to find this stuff, um, maybe, you know, the shipping supplies and all of that,

[00:16:17] uh, with jewelry, sometimes we need more, we need tissue paper, bubble wrap boxes, whatever the case may

[00:16:23] be. When you take all of that into consideration, it wasn't really worth my time to sell anything that

[00:16:29] was less than $20. All right. And even now, if I were to go back to sourcing that way, I still would

[00:16:38] not want to sell anything for less than $20 just because honestly, it's not worth my time. And, um,

[00:16:47] I just, I feel at this point in my jewelry reselling career, like at a minimum, I should be able to do

[00:16:56] that. I should be able to find jewelry pieces, you know, for less than 20 that I could flip for 20.

[00:17:01] All right. But, but ideally I would like to sell jewelry pieces for like 30, 40, $50. All right.

[00:17:10] Now, now we're talking about on a static platform like eBay. Now, when we're talking about live selling,

[00:17:19] which is, you all know, that's my jam. Um, in a live sale, I don't get $20 per piece.

[00:17:26] All the time. It depends on exactly what it is I'm selling. Sometimes in a live sale, I'll sell

[00:17:33] something for five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, $11, depending on what it is. And it's really not,

[00:17:40] you know, the best of the best stuff, but I can move volume that way. All right. So I'm still

[00:17:47] hitting the sales goals, but I may not be hitting the average sales price per item in a live sale,

[00:17:54] because typically in a live sale, you can sell in volume at a lower price. All right. And then if

[00:18:01] you're selling on a platform like eBay or Poshmark or Etsy or something like that, um, you can command

[00:18:10] a higher price for your jewelry. It's just going to take a little bit longer to sell. So it's that,

[00:18:17] um, what is that phrase? It's a fast nickel, slow dime. I think, I think that's it. Yeah,

[00:18:25] I think that's it. So again, you've got to figure out what's going to work for your particular business

[00:18:31] model and what works for your lifestyle. All right. And what works, you know, for, for the knowledge

[00:18:37] that you have right now, as it relates to jewelry, do you know how to source, uh, these pieces that,

[00:18:43] you know, you can flip for $20 or more. Now I know jewelry resellers who are way past that,

[00:18:50] you know, where, where they're selling, um, jewelry pieces, $40 and up $50 and up. Like I told you with

[00:18:58] Jen, she sells items $75 and up. All right. Um, so it just depends on, on how much you can

[00:19:09] source, um, what your knowledge is of the pieces that you're selling. And you want to make sure that

[00:19:17] what you're selling is what people actually want because you can't flip something for $20 that nobody

[00:19:23] wants. So there's a lot to think about and there's a lot to take into consideration. Okay.

[00:19:30] All right. So the next question in the email was what is a reasonable sell through rate for good

[00:19:41] brand jewelry? This is a great question because I don't know if I've ever talked about this,

[00:19:47] but I had to go back in my, um, cause I have a planner and it kind of looks like this. I use,

[00:19:54] I used a happy planner and what I would do is I would track everything that I listed for the day

[00:20:01] and I would track whatever I sold for the day and that type of thing. So, um, I had to go back and

[00:20:07] kind of look at what, what I was doing when I was, you know, doing, you know, jewelry, um, at the

[00:20:14] height, I guess, of my jewelry reselling career. All right. So let's get back to this. What is a

[00:20:18] reasonable sell through rate for good brand jewelry? All right. So here's what I, what I have experienced

[00:20:25] myself and what I have learned from other jewelry resellers, a typical sell through rate

[00:20:34] for reseller for jewelry resellers is between 40 and 80% over the course of two to four months.

[00:20:44] All right. So if you're listing jewelry that people actually want to buy,

[00:20:51] you should be able to flip it within two to four months. Now there's going to be those rare pieces

[00:20:55] that could take up to a year. And then there's going to be those sought after pieces that will take

[00:21:02] days or hours that you can sell. All right. But in general, jewelry is not one of those fast,

[00:21:08] super fast moving categories. There's always going to be an exception to the rule, but in general,

[00:21:14] jewelry is not a fast, you know, super fast seller. All right. So a typical sell through rate for

[00:21:22] jewelry resellers is between 40 and 80% over the course of two to four months. All right. And,

[00:21:29] and if you have a sell through rate of 80%, that's considered really, really good.

[00:21:36] So for an example, if you are listing 100 items per week, 100 jewelry items per week,

[00:21:44] you should expect to sell between 40 to 80 items per week. All right. Remember it's because you're

[00:21:53] listing jewelry that people actually want and stuff that, you know, has a good sell through rate.

[00:22:00] And it'll take you some time to figure this out. Even I don't get it right all the time.

[00:22:06] I don't, I'm still learning too. All right. But in general, if you're listing a hundred items per week

[00:22:14] at the bare minimum, you should be able to sell at least 40 items per week. If you can sell 80,

[00:22:22] that's fantastic, but not a lot of people, not a lot of people do that. All right. Although I do know

[00:22:28] some jewelry resellers that do. So a hundred items a week. See, and I think that seems very reasonable.

[00:22:38] If I'm listing a hundred jewelry pieces a week, yeah, I should easily be able to sell 40 of those.

[00:22:43] All right. And sometimes you'll sell more, sometimes you'll sell less, but on average,

[00:22:48] that's really what it breaks down to. And I'm just using these numbers as an example. You know,

[00:22:53] you may list more than a hundred items per week, or you may list less. All right. But this

[00:22:58] just kind of gives you a gauge and it kind of helps you figure out, okay, so maybe I should expect to

[00:23:05] sell a little less than half of whatever I'm listing for the week. And again, it's because you're listing

[00:23:14] stuff that people, you know, people want. All right. So think about that. Okay. Let me go back to

[00:23:26] my notes. So I hope that this is helping you figure this out. You know, I would love to give

[00:23:33] you just a blanket answer that will work, but there really isn't one because I know all of us are,

[00:23:42] are working with different amounts when it comes to sourcing, when it comes to listing and, you know,

[00:23:48] what we're selling. Okay. So next up in the email, they write, I'm starting to handpick a few pieces

[00:23:58] at the thrift store, Sarah Coventry, Napier, Swarovski, Wise. But I want to know how long to expect

[00:24:06] these bigger $5 or so investments to sit before they sell. Now I love Sarah Coventry jewelry,

[00:24:16] but it's not always a fast seller for me. There's going to be some brands that I can sell

[00:24:24] probably within a week, maybe two at the most. And those are certain brands that I know people

[00:24:31] are looking for and I know are in high demand. So there's good and bad pieces in all the brands.

[00:24:37] And a lot of this is going to depend on what the specific piece is, the condition. All right.

[00:24:45] And also the design, because there's some pieces of Sarah Coventry that are not highly sought after.

[00:24:54] And then there's some pieces that really are just because of the design, the style, the stones,

[00:24:59] the color, whatever it may be. So when you're asking, you want to know how long to expect these

[00:25:05] bigger investments to sit before they sell? I think that goes back to the sell through rate that we

[00:25:13] talked about roughly two to four months for jewelry. However, it could take longer, especially if it's

[00:25:22] a higher priced item. Sometimes you have to wait for a very specific buyer. And sometimes it'll take six

[00:25:31] months. Sometimes it'll take, you know, a year, a year and a half. So again, if you're going to do

[00:25:40] this full time, you have to kind of take that time into consideration because you don't want to just

[00:25:46] have all your money tied up in your inventory, your beautiful inventory. And then you don't have any

[00:25:53] money coming in to cover your expenses, pay bills, source more items or whatever it is that you need to

[00:25:59] do. All right. So, um, in general, I want to say maybe four to six months, you know, answering this

[00:26:09] question again, like I said, there's a lot of variables to take into consideration. The big thing

[00:26:14] with jewelry is always condition. Most people want their jewelry in very good to excellent to like new,

[00:26:25] new condition. Most people. Now there's a few out there who don't care, who know how to do restoration,

[00:26:31] who know how to do repairs, but that's not really the main, the main, uh, target audience that we're

[00:26:38] looking for or target buyer, I should say. So name brand or marked or signed jewelry has a better chance,

[00:26:50] but it doesn't always guarantee that someone's going to want it. And sometimes, uh, there's so

[00:26:56] many pieces, like, especially with, with Sarah Coventry or Monet, there's so many other pieces

[00:27:04] similar, or sometimes exactly like the one you have. So then it just becomes sometimes a race to the

[00:27:11] bottom. Who's going to sell it at the cheapest price in order to make the sale, you know, and I'm not

[00:27:15] really a big fan of doing that. Um, a lot of times I will just move it to a live show and I will sell it

[00:27:23] that way. And I may have to take less on it, but at least it won't be like bottom of the, you know,

[00:27:30] bottom of the barrel type pricing. Okay. So next we have, let me see, is this a question or is this?

[00:27:41] Okay. They say I've listed 120 individual pieces and nine, one pound bags, uh, craft and wearable.

[00:27:50] And I don't know if you guys know that, but I have really good luck selling those bags,

[00:27:55] those jewelry bags. I've sold nine pieces and zero bags. My average sales price is $13 and 25 cents.

[00:28:04] I did sell one pair of Kendra Scott earrings for $75. That's fantastic.

[00:28:09] But that's not included in my average as it was an outlier. And I have nothing else even close to that

[00:28:16] price. My average asking price of everything I currently have listed is $17.50. Do you see

[00:28:24] anywhere that I can easily improve these numbers? Now this goes back to what I was saying earlier,

[00:28:29] where you can bulk pieces together. There are a lot of people who like to buy jewelry in bulk lots,

[00:28:35] or sometimes if you can kind of curate a whole outfit or I guess a whole style where you have

[00:28:43] earrings, necklace, bracelet, and it all matches in a ring, maybe something like that. Uh, but that was

[00:28:50] how I was able to kind of bump up my average sales price when I had those pieces that were probably

[00:28:57] maybe five to $7 ish. And I would put them in a lot. And then that way I could lot them up and I could sell

[00:29:05] that lot for 25, 30, in some cases, 40 or $50 again, depending on what all was in there. And those

[00:29:16] are not as fast sellers as individual pieces, but they do sell and they do move. At least that's been my

[00:29:23] experience. I know some jewelry resellers who only sell bulk lots. Uh, I know one, she does only

[00:29:30] earrings. She only sells bulk lots of vintage earrings because it's easy for her to photograph.

[00:29:36] It's easy for her to find and she lots them up. It's easy for her to ship, you know, so you can

[00:29:43] really figure out anything, uh, whatever is going to work for you, whatever makes sense, whatever is,

[00:29:51] is going to be worth your time and energy. All right. Because here's the thing too.

[00:29:59] I used to just do this and not really have any type of understanding or clarity on the numbers,

[00:30:07] on how much time it was taking on, how much I was spending and, and what it was costing me and fees

[00:30:13] and all of that, because I just loved pretty jewelry. And I'm telling you that got me into trouble,

[00:30:21] you know, for, for a long time, I did not know what I was doing. And I was just hoping,

[00:30:26] you know, hoping against hope that I'd make a sale and that, you know, somebody would buy this

[00:30:32] because it was pretty or because I liked it or because I thought it looked good. All right. So I've

[00:30:37] come a long way since then, but I still sometimes see newbie jewelry resellers get caught up in that.

[00:30:44] All right. So education is your friend here. The more, you know, about jewelry, the better you will

[00:30:50] become at sourcing jewelry, which means the better you will become at selling or in our case, reselling

[00:30:56] jewelry. Okay. So that is what I have for this episode. I hope that it was helpful. I hope it

[00:31:07] really gave you an understanding of what you need to think about and what you need to figure out for

[00:31:16] your business, because I'm telling you, this can be very complicated or it can be very streamlined

[00:31:26] depending on you. You're the one that has to decide and you're the one that has to figure out

[00:31:32] what is reasonable and what is acceptable for you. All right. Like I said, I am still a jewelry lover

[00:31:38] and a jewelry reseller, although I am not doing it at the levels that I once was because I'm kind of

[00:31:45] ready to, to move into a different direction. Although I will always have a love and passion for jewelry

[00:31:51] and I will always enjoy learning and sharing what I know with all of you here on this podcast.

[00:31:59] All right. So like I said, I hope that this was helpful. And if any of you have questions that you

[00:32:06] would like me to answer in a podcast episode, you can head on over to the website, which is

[00:32:13] jewelry resellers podcast.com. You can hop on over to the contact page and you can either fill out the

[00:32:20] contact form or you can email me directly. You can also send me a message on Instagram or Tik TOK,

[00:32:26] or leave a comment, um, on YouTube. Or, uh, if you're listening on Spotify, you can now leave

[00:32:34] comments on Spotify as well. All right, friends, thank you so much for hanging out and talking

[00:32:41] jewelry with me and I will see you really soon.