Guide to Jewelry Diamond website

A rough guide to establishing an e-Commerce business for Jewelry, Diamond & Gemstone companies

Guide to Jewelry Diamond website

Building Your Own Jewelry website with Loose Diamonds and engagement rings

Most of the points enunciated here stem from our day-to-day experience with developing dozens of jewelry e-commerce portals.

So, you are small or mid-size jewelry, diamond, and gemstone retailing company operating in traditional brick and mortar environment. You have realized the potential to take the business online especially post Pandemic and would like to establish your eCommerce presence.

Where do you Begin? Here is a compact and to-the-point guide:

Domain image

Domain name

First things first; get a simple but effective domain name for your company. There are many registrars offering online domain reservation, Click for the list.

Our suggestion for selecting a domain name

  • Integrate your company name; for e.g. Arsalan Gems can have arsalangems.com if not available then arsalangemsonline.com or arsalangemsshop.com would be good.
  • .com names are the most preferred once.
  • Most of the domain names will be unavailable. So creativity in selecting a catchy but simple domain name is important.

Check out this article ;  a dated one but still holds good when selecting a domain name.

Domain image

Photographs Most important ingredients of the website

Get ready with photographs of your inventory. Preferably in three angles and in good lighting conditions. If hiring a professional photographer is out of your budget; you can do it in-house. All photographs should be from the same perspective  and of good quality (at least 800x 800 resolution). Label the photographs appropriately, e.g. "solitaire-ring-m123-Top angle .jpg" labelling should be self-explanatory and SEO friendly.

Don't Photoshop images, except for clearing dirt particles or blemishes. Photoshopping or doctoring images of jewelry is not ethical.

The budget for website development

Will range from $9000 to $25000 depending on your requirements. But $9000 would be good enough. If you have something like bluenile.com or gemvera.com in mind, set aside at least 25K -35K USD as the development budget..

Diamond Sourcing

Loose Diamonds and Gemstones are amongst the most essential, inventory on your website. Here are the primary sources for pulling the diamond data.

Note that for pulling any of these APIs you need to have a membership account with the respective trading exchanges.

1) Rapnet API: Rapnet is a Peer to Peer exchange for buying and selling diamonds. Suppliers upload their diamond inventory and retailers source the diamonds through the Rapnet Platform. You need to have a membership with Rapnet to access the Rapnet Diamond API. 

2) IDEXonline: Similar to Rapnet IDEXonline is also a leading Peer to Peer diamond exchange http://www.idexonline.com/

3) Polygon APIhttps://www.polygon.net/

4) Stuller API https://www.stuller.com/

5) Nivoda https://nivoda.net/

6) Custom diamond CSV from suppliers: If you have ongoing business relations with diamond suppliers; their Diamond data feed can be pulled onto your website

However, it's important to note that all the above are diamond trading exchanges and not sellers. When a diamond is sold through your website, you need to negotiate with the suppliers directly.

TransPacific Software Specializes in integrating all of these third-party API within a website. Here are Demo websites to see how these diamonds (with markup) are listed on the jewelry portal.

Data Collation

Organize inventory data in spreadsheet format like Excel. It may include Jewelry stock number, design number, metal, size, stone details, stone origin, cut, size etc. Here is a sample data format  for your reference: https://goo.gl/9KSc79

Programmer selection

You may find a website development agency through Upwork or freelancer platforms but be sure to look at their past experience and feedback. Jewelry website designing is a specialized job. As a thumb rule don't go for the lowest or "too good to be true" pricing rather give emphasis on the developer's portfolio.

We would strongly suggest hiring a development agency over individual programmers due to reliability issues.

Ask the programmer how long he will support your website with bug fixing as and when required. Initial support of at least 3 months is crucial till web site becomes stable.

magento versign opencart rapnet

Request the selected programmer or the development agency to provide a demo of the backend console from where you can manage your website with no or little training. Some of the backend website management includes updating inventory, changing static page contents including contact details phone numbers etc., and adding new pages in content like additional questions in the FAQ.

Maintenance and updating work can be done in-house through a web-based simple admin console inbuilt with  Shopify, Magento and woocommerce, OpenCart frameworks.

Check out Our Blog: Setting up an e-commerce site ? Don’t be penny wise and pound foolish

Platform

Opt for Open source platform like php+mysql. We strongly suggest open-source frameworks like Woocommerce or Magento which are built on php. A developer may suggest frameworks like DotNetNuke or aspdotnetstorefront. But unless you have complete knowledge about these I would not suggest them.

Amongst the hosted platforms like Bigcommerce , WiX and Shopify we strongly suggest Shopify as it's built for ecommerce.

Hosting

You will have to buy a hosting package from a server hosting provider like Godaddy.com , Justhost.com or hostgater.com (there are hundreds of companies offering hosting services). Linux server with shared hosting is a cost-effective and good choice.  If you are opting for Shopify no such hosting is required. Shopify and Shopify Plus are hosted offerings.

If you wish to have realtime online transactions through the credit card you will have to subscribe to payment gateway providers.Again in case of Shopify its inbuilt.

Payment gateway

If you wish to have real-time online transactions through a credit card you will have to subscribe to payment gateway providers.

A payment gateway is a service that automates the payment transaction between the shopper and the merchant. It is usually a third-party service that is actually a system of computer processes that process, verify, and accept or decline credit card transactions on behalf of the merchant through secure Internet connections.

Your developer will integrate the payment gateway into your eCommerce website. Alternatively if you don't wish to have an online transaction, you may opt for offline transactions wherein the buyer can make payment through check or wire.

Here is the list of some recognized payment gateway providers.

SEO

Search Engine Optimization is perhaps the most complex subject. If anyone is promising to put your website on the first page of Google for search terms like "engagement rings" or Diamond Jewelry"; its a scam. Google algorithms are extremely sophisticated. It takes months before your site can even start showing up on the first three pages for generic search strings like "Diamond engagement ring".

You may open a Facebook fan page, Twitter and Google Plus accounts, regularly announcing "what's new", NEWS and your thoughts. But you need to keep these accounts buzzing. Don't open social networking accounts unless you devote regular time to keep these active.

  • Include semantic tags adhering to schema.org standards. You may want to take the help of a qualified developer for the same.
  • Ask your developer to integrate a blog and keep regularly blogging your thoughts, Industry News etc.
  • Add original content in the website like " Diamond buying tips" or "Types of color stones" etc. Google ranking algorithm will give good scores for original content.
  • Ask your developer to create an account on Google webmaster central and submit sitemaps to Google bots .
  • Get your on-page SEO tuned up eg. correct Titles, Description , H1 tag etc. 
  • Ask your developer to provide  Twitter and FB sharing Icons on the web site.
seo

Social Networking

You may open a Facebook fan page, Twitter and Google Plus accounts, regularly announcing "what's new", NEWS and your thoughts. But you need to keep these accounts buzzing. Don't open social networking accounts unless you devote regular time to keep these active.

How should I advertise my web site?

  • Advertise your website URL wherever you can.
  • Print it in stationary; e-mail it to your clients.
  • Declare it on your personal FB and Linkedin Profile

PPC ads or Google paid  advertising

We would not suggest the same for small and medium-size jewellery companies unless you have at least a $2000 monthly budget exclusively for advertising. It's expensive and competitive.

Feel free to contact us on [email protected] with any questions or eCommerce development needs.

TransPacific Software is a leading e-commerce website developer for Jewelry, Diamonds and colour stone industry.

Our partial portfolio

Rapnet Diamond Listing and Integration

3D jewelery Viewer

Demo Diamond e-store on OpenCart

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