by rena klingenberg.
We’re in luck: mailing jewelry is much easier and cheaper than mailing most other types of art! Most jewelry is small and light enough to fit into the smallest shipping box or bubble padded envelope, and ships with a relatively small amount of postage.
packaging your jewelry for shipping
When I ship jewelry, I carefully package the piece in a ziplock jewelry bag and place it (along with its hang tag or earring card) in a cotton-lined cardboard or metal jewelry gift box.
I then slide an elastic tie into the box and slide a blank gift card under the elastic, so the jewelry is easy to gift. or if the customer ordered the jewelry for herself, then my packaging can make her feel like she just received a gift from herself!
Then, I place the gift box, my packing slip, a few business cards, and any promotional flyers inside a medium-sized ziplock jewelry bag so none of these items get lost or accidentally thrown away when my customer open the shipping box. .
Finally, this package is placed in a small bubble envelope or cardboard shipping box.
add protective padding
When filling in the empty spaces between boxed jewelry and the outer shipping box or envelope, I try to recycle or use some sort of “green” approach.
Most of the time I reuse brown paper, clean “peanut” packaging, or bubble wrap that came as padding in the boxes they sent me.
Alternatively, many jewelry artists use shredded paper, colored tissue paper, plastic poinsettias, or other pretty packaging materials for cushioning.
jewelry gift box combined with bubble envelope or shipping box provide good protection for the jewelry inside.
If you are using a cardboard shipping box instead of a soft bubble envelope, you may want to put your jewelry in gift bags instead of gift boxes.
get your jewelry shipping supplies
Local office supply stores often charge several times the price you would pay for the same supplies you can get from an online supplier.
so before you shop, be sure to look online for deals on bubble mailers, duct tape, and all other mailing supplies.
When it finally occurred to me to research buying mailing supplies online, I was surprised to find out how much more I was paying for them at a local office supply store.
do some research online for the type of shipping supplies you need, and also check out amazon and ebay.
Be sure to include the seller’s shipping fees in your decision.
Customers don’t always realize that in addition to postage, you also have the additional costs of boxes or bubble mailers, shipping tape, cushioning materials, etc. when you send them a jewelry order.
A high shipping rate is one of the main reasons online shoppers leave a webstore shopping cart without buying the items they put in it.
Therefore, it’s important to keep your shipping supply costs low so you can charge your customers as little as possible to ship their orders to them.
important: safety tip for sending jewelry by mail
The outside of jewelry packages or mail should never have words related to jewelry!
Putting something like “jane’s fancy jewelry” or “mike’s gemstones” on the shipping label will make your package a prime target for theft at some point in the shipping process.
Instead, I recommend using only your first and last name (and your customer’s first and last name) on the shipping label. the important thing is to make sure that no one thinks that your package contains valuable precious metals, jewels or gems.
The same goes for packages that have been sent to you. If your company name has words related to jewelry, please send packages under your personal name.
mail jewelry to the usa uu.
united states first class mail:
in the united states you can send jewelry by first class mail at a fairly low price.
you may want to consider add-ons like insurance or delivery confirmation.
united states priority mail:
another good option for mailing jewelry in the us. uu. it’s priority mail.
This is a cheap version of expedited shipping: it’s a day or two slower than express mail, but much cheaper. packages shipped this way usually arrive from one u.s. destination to another in two or three postal days.
and again, you may want to consider insurance or delivery confirmation options.
One advantage of using priority mail to ship packages is that the post office will give you free priority mail boxes for shipping!
They have a variety of box sizes, from very small (about the right size for one or two pieces of jewelry packed in gift boxes) to very large. You can order priority mailboxes online at the post office or pick them up at your local post office.
international jewelry shipping
if you are in the us. us:
be sure to watch the us. postal service’s international shipping resource center page for all the most up-to-date details and instructions on customs, forms, shipping, claims, paperwork, etc.
outside the us. us:
check the website of your country’s main post office for instructions or visit your local city post office for assistance.
other shipping methods
Depending on what you’re shipping, where you live, and where your customer lives, it may be cheaper, easier, and faster to use a different shipping or courier service.
ups, fedex, dhl, and other package delivery services often have surprisingly low rates on two-day ground or air shipments for small packages.
how much should you charge customers for shipping?
many jewelry artists include shipping and packaging costs when pricing their jewelry so they can offer free shipping to their customers.
others charge shipping separately.
When deciding how to charge for shipping, keep in mind that online shoppers are often upset if they think the supplier is making an extra profit by charging high fees for shipping or shipping.
many online shoppers say they prefer the supplier to include packaging and shipping costs in the product prices rather than pay $7 to ship a package that arrives with $1.50 postage.
You may want to encourage larger online jewelry orders by charging a flat shipping rate for all jewelry orders up to a certain dollar amount (such as $50 or $100) and offering free shipping on all orders above to that amount.
make it easy to ship jewelry orders by mail
For fast and easy postage and shipping, consider using an online postage service such as endicia.com, stamps.com, or usps.com if you are located in the US. uu.
outside the us. In the US, see what your country’s postal service has to offer for online postage.
postage online saves a lot of time, especially if you frequently ship jewelry orders to your customers.
Simply enter your customer’s shipping address on the online postal service’s website and then purchase and print the postage from your computer.
Since postage is already paid online, you no longer have to take your packages to the post office or wait in long lines there.
Instead, simply attach your postage-paid label to your package and mail it from home or drop it off at any public drop box.
You can also choose options to insure your jewelry packages, delivery confirmation, etc. while you purchase your postage online, without completing additional forms.
weigh your jewelry packages for shipment
If you use an online postal service, you will need to be able to weigh your packages yourself.
A postal scale (sometimes also called a “letter scale”) makes weighing easy. they come in digital versions and old balance versions.
You can find them on ebay, or at office supply stores and walmart-type stores.