How to Start a Wedding Rings Shop
For people that may like to start a wedding rings shop, this article will give you some insights on how to go about it. One of the most memorable days in anyone’s life is their wedding day. One individual meets another individual and falling in love, fits into the dream of the other, builds a stable relationship. And the next thing in their minds, their friends and family are for them to progress to the next level. This next level is for them to legally become married by having a wedding ceremony.
According to online statistics, an average of 44,230 weddings takes place every weekend. If you are thinking of starting a new business, you can make extra bucks by participating in the wedding business by retailing wedding rings because rings are one of the requirements for any wedding ceremony.
Probably, while reading this, a wedding is taking place somewhere in any corner of the world. The wedding rings business is a massive industry that is not affected by economic recession or global collapse. In this article, I will share a complete guide on how to start a wedding rings store.
Step by Step Guide on How to Start a Wedding Rings Store
Choose a business structure.
This is a vital step to take when starting a wedding rings store business or any form of business; you will need to find the business structure or organizational form that meets your needs. The structure of your business will depend on how you want to manage it: whether you want to manage it alone or with partners or associates.
There are four types of business structures:
- Sole Proprietorship,
- General Partnership,
- Joint Stock Company
- Corporation
The choice of a legal structure will generate a certain number of consequences in terms of social regime, taxation, remuneration, or even liability.
Besides, your choice will also depend on your activity, your needs, or your personal and financial situation. The structure you choose to run the wedding rings store will affect everything from your tax liability to your responsibility. It’s impossible to register the business with the appropriate authority without choosing a structure for the business.
I will recommend that you consult a business lawyer before deciding the structure for the business. This will help in choosing the right structure that will make the business profitable.
Read Also: How to Start a Bridal Shop Business
Conduct market research
Carrying out market research is more than necessary before embarking on setting up your wedding rings business store. Market research helps in understanding the reasons why prospective customers will buy the products from the store. The research provides information on the personal, societal, and cultural factors that affect the consumer’s behavior.
The market research should be able to answer the following questions:
- Where is your future activity positioned according to current market trends?
- What are the constraints attached to the business of selling wedding rings?
- Are there any competitors? If yes, whereare they? What is their current positioning, or their perspective for the future?
- What is the profile of your future customers/consumers?
- What is the environment in your sector?
Beyond these questions, the list of which is not exhaustive, you must also draw conclusions from them and be able to fix figures and strategies, which will subsequently be incorporated into your business plan.
Write your business plan
Before writing your business plan, it is necessary to ask the right questions. The business plan is an important document, even if you do not intend to show it to investors or your banker. There are some mistakes to avoid in your business plan, so when writing it, it will force you to ask yourself the right questions:
- Who are your customers, and how will you make them aware of your product/services?
- What volumes of customers should you have reached by the end of your first year? At the end of the second year? Fifth?
- What resources will you need to start building yourwedding rings business?
- What are the possible obstacles you might encounter? How to overcome them? What’s your plan?
Therefore, the business plan must be perfectly adapted to the business, its structure, its content, and the expectations for the development of the store. Even though business plans vary in length and scope, all successful business plans have common elements. The specifics of the wedding rings business and the location must be components of the business business.
Choose a creative name for the business (store)
It is crucial to choose your store (business) name carefully because it will precede the notion prospective customers will have about the store wherever the name is seen. A name, if chosen well, can be a useful advertising tool. It can also help your customers understand what your business is doing and what market you are targeting. An inappropriate name can confuse or scare customers.
Here is some tip to remember when choosing a name for your store:
- The name must describe the product or service the store is offering?
- Does the name reflect your company’s values?
- It must be distinctive from other wedding ring store names.
- The name should be easily identifiable by customers.
- Any other business shouldn’t use the wedding rings store name.
However, some aspects of selecting a business name for the store are subjective, and some people may offer advice based on their personal experiences or preferences, not realistic certifications. If you need help, you can hire a professional to help you create a name and browse trademark laws to prevent copyright infringement.
Register the business with the government
As a new store owner, you need to understand the importance of publicizing the wedding rings store. In addition to advertising your business to potential customers, you will need to notify the government of your plans to legalize it.
You may need to register your business with many levels of government for different reasons. You will be given documents that provide an overview of the principal registration requirements that may apply to the store’s operations.
Read Also: Why You Must Register Your Small Business
Obtain permits and licenses
After registering the business with the appropriate authorities to make the store (business), one that is legally recognized by the law, if you fail to obtain the required permits and licenses, it can lead to the business receiving heavy fines or even having the business shutdown by local authorities.
However, different governments have different regulations and guidelines about what you need to do to get the business started legally; it’s advisable to check for the regulations for the city you intend to open the wedding rings store.
You can also check with your city and state on any needed licenses and permits and make sure you are zoned to operate a wedding ring store.
Open a Bank Account
It is important that you have a bank account for your business. Even though you have a personal bank account, you still need to open a separate account for your business where you can lodge all your revenues. Also, you should make all the expenses relating to the business from the account. This makes you more accountable. At the same time, it will be easier for you to source loans from the bank when needed. Furthermore, having a bank account makes it easy for your accountant to prepare the financial statements of your wedding ring shop.
Financing for the business
The stage of seeking financing for the wedding rings store is more than essential. It will highlight whether it is possible or not economically and financially to start the store in your desired location and to monitor the growth of the business.
There are several ways to seek funding when starting up any type of business. In this article, I will explain four (4) of the major sources of seeking funding for the business (wedding rings retail store). They are:
- Internal financing: it is financing by the partners; it includes the contributions constituting the share capital, the contributions in the current account of partners.
- External financing: it is the financing generated by venture capital, investment funds or even the crowdfunding system,
- Bank loans: banks provide entrepreneurs with a number of loans and various means to create their business, such as the creation loan, factoring, and many others.
- Government financing of the businessincludes aid for the unemployed for business creation and other assistance provided by different government organizations.
You can choose the most preferred way of seeking finances for the business.
Choose a location for the store.
The choice of location is an extremely important strategic decision. In the case of a wedding rings store, two locations stand out, especially for their suitability.
- The shopping centersallow you to receive a large number of customer visits and offers great visibility.
- The commercial areasof the city centers are also usually very good, especially those located in neighborhoods with inhabitants with high purchasing power.
It’s advisable to have both a physical store and an online sales page. This is the best way to cover all bases since you can sell locally and to other countries.
To be able to sell the wedding rings online, there’s need to set up a website for the business through a third party for its construction or using a professional sales shop like Shopify, sell them through an auction site like eBay, or get a space in the online marketplace like DeWanda and Etsy. Each option has its advantages, different formats, and levels of customization and point prices.
Designing your product catalog
This is a very important step because it helps to choose the products to be sold by dividing them by categories. Remember that customers must easily find what they are looking for. It’s highly recommended that you create your catalog with products that are available in your store.
Furthermore, you would have to create a catalog page in the store website you would build, enriching the catalog page with quality photos and exhaustive descriptions of each product. Each product must be associated with a code that allows you to identify it and not make mistakes with shipments uniquely.
You will have to find suppliers and establish a relationship with them to build and manage your rings. It is essential to have the right amount of rings at the right time not to tie down your capital unnecessarily and so that your displays are not empty.
Read Also: How To Start A Dropshipping Business
Choose different payment methods.
Another step to consider when starting a wedding ring store is to allow customers to pay for the rings using different methods. Some of the means of payment would include bank transfer, prepaid cards, cash on delivery, collection in the store in cash, and PayPal.
You can also accept credit card payments through a POS system offered by banks or with PayPal, a secure system designed for online transactions. Not implementing different payment method means cutting out a large slice of customers that might want to use more convenient means of payment. Having different payment methods will also give you an edge over your competitors.
Build your team
When starting the store, you would have to employ some staff to help in managing the store. They can help in checking inventory, running the social media pages for online sales, and attending to customers in the store. You may need a store manager, a sales representative, and a social media manager.
Also, your employees represent your business. So be sure to emphasize the excellence of customer service. Satisfying customers is a great way to build customer loyalty.
Marketing plan
The wedding rings store marketing plan must address everything from pricing, how to attract prospective customers to the physical store, and your online store. You will write an overview of the market situation but give more details under each of these sections. Your plan will also outline threats and opportunities. Carrying out the appropriate market research and implementing it into the marketing plan will help stay on track with the store’s marketing goals.
I will advise that you create a website with an e-commerce theme that can allow you to makes sales using the website. Also, remember to open a page on social media to promote your business or use the many channels made available by the network: profile on YouTube, blogs, discussion forums, etc. Here are some tips on what to post on social media:
- Close-up photos of the rings in the store
- Pictures of your shop
- Photos of your team
- Sales ads
- Models wearing your rings
- Contests or giveaways you’re running (to promote people coming in!)
Make sure your phone number, email address, and store address are all listed on your website and social media accounts, so it’s easy for prospects to contact you.
Read Also: 8 Reasons Why Small Business Need a Website for Your Business
The wedding rings retail business is one of those industries that never go out of style. With the world population growing progressively with each passing year, many people will still want to get married and, therefore, need wedding rings. The demand for rings will forever remain high.
This article has provided you with basic information you will need to make the business profitable. If you can apply all that was listed in the article, it will not be hard to run a wedding rings store successfully.