Why starting a jewellery brand is so hard in 2023

Starting a jewellery brand in 2023 is tough for so many reasons. Firstly, the expense. Selling a luxury product like jewellery demands luxury surroundings: packaging materials, jewellery boxes, website design, insurance, photography, models…and this is before we even consider the sky-high price of the materials. Gold and diamonds are at an all-time high, and not likely to ever diminish.

But ironically this is where it can make more sense to sell fine jewellery rather than plated or fashion-fine. The expense on all the additional assets a jewellery brand needs, as listed above, remain almost the same - you still need photography, a website, packaging, content creation etc to sell non-precious jewellery, and to make a decent profit you need to sell a lot of it.

Fine jewellery allows for a larger mark-up per piece, particularly if you are making bespoke or made-to-order, and some jewellers feel it’s easier to sell one piece and make £1000 profit than sell hundreds of much smaller pieces for the same.

Gone are the days when fashion jewellery brands can swoop to success organically like Monica Vinader and Missoma did, large jewellery brands like Mejuri need start-up capital to break through in the market as it’s so overcrowded.

There are hundreds of jewellery brands on the market now compared to much smaller numbers 15 or even 10 years ago. Competition is fierce, growth is expensive, and customers have high expectations and a lot of options from which to choose from.

Standing out with an original product, design, or point of view is essential to succeeding in the jewellery market in 2023. Your brand needs something that will help you to sell a gold necklace when your customer has 20 or so favourite brands they can shop from.

Originality, whether it’s in the design, the vibe of your brand, or the materials you use, is essentially the only way to stand out - taking an in-depth look into what you do that is actually different can save you time (and considerable expense) when considering what to launch and how to launch it.