Jewelry Business Guru by Cindy Edelstein

Call for Entries: 500 Silver Jewelry Designs by Lark Books

Lark Books is publishing in a juried collection of international studio jewelry. 500 Silver Jewelry Designs, juried by Talya Baharal, is a 420-page, full color survey of contemporary jewelers prominently featuring silver in their designs. This international collection will be beautifully presented and widely distributed throughout the world.

All jewelry forms, such as rings, bracelets, necklaces, earrings, and brooches are welcome. Materials other than silver, such as stones, other metals, or alternative materials, may be included, but silver must be the focus and should occupy roughly 80% of the piece. All design styles are welcome.

Jewelers whose work is selected for inclusion will receive full acknowledgment within the book, a complimentary copy, and discounts on the future purchase of books. Artists retain copyright to their work. Lark accepts high-quality digital images, transparencies, and slides. No entry fee is required.


For more submission guidelines and entry forms, please visit:
http://www.larkbooks.com/submissions/artist-submissions

For more information on Lark Books and the 500 series, please visit:

http://www.larkbooks.com/catalog?section_key=2&limit=10

"iMakeJewelry" for the Apple iPhone - a designer app!

We read today on the Business of Craft blog that Crafthaus member Victoria Lansford announces the release of "iMakeJewelry" for the Apple iPhone !

Product description:
iMakeJewelry is the ultimate app for jewelers and metalsmiths. Use it to check precious metal prices, calculate sheet, wire and wax weights, ring blank lengths, find alloy recipes and information on stones. Use it to calculate weight conversions from wax to metal or silver to gold and convert weight and area measurements from English to metric. Also included are tables for drill bit sizes and B&S gauges. Watch for frequent tips from Victoria Lansford.

read more:
The Business of Craft: Now your PDA is your most valuable bench assistant !.

Twitip.com – Twitter Tips By Seasoned Twitter Users To Help You Get Started

Tim Lenahan of Makeuseof.com points out some great content on a favorite website of  mine, too, Twitip.com. Where you can learn all things twitter.

"I remember when I started learning how to Twitter.  My first reaction was “What in the world is the use of this waste of time?”  Twitter was confusing, a waste of time, and without a point.  It wasn’t until I decided I was going to finally sit down and figure it out that I actually began to “get it,” wrote Tim.

"The point is, Twitter can be quite the tool to get your proverbial head around.  When things are tough, it’s nice to have a little help.  It’s for that reason that a blog like Twitip.com comes in handy.  Twitip.com shares tips about how to Twitter.  In fact, that’s what the name means: Twit-tip."

Visit the article to find out all the tips Tim recommends.

Twitip.com – Twitter Tips By Seasoned Twitter Users To Help You Get Started.

Retailers and Customer Engagement Through Twitter

Macala Wright (fashionablymarketing.me) , Crosby Noricks (PRCouture.com), Maria Ogneva (fashionablymarketing.me) presented a panel at the 140Conf in Los Angeles called “Retailers and Customer Engagement Through Twitter.”

Here's some great video from their presentation that will give you a great look at online tools for fashion brands and retailers. Heard of Polyvore?

Who does great job? They recommend following: hayden_harnett . CharlotteRusse, dkny (DKNY PR Girl), oscarPRgirl, StellaMccartney, nylanoor, m641.

I recommend following: me, of course! JewelryBizGuru and also FashMarketing, JICchicks, cutblog, MSchechter , @abstanfield, @gosmallbiz, @collectivee, @nikolena.

Also reccomended to follow are the various fashion media. See the videos on Macala's blog:

Twitter and Retail Brands: Establish Metrics For ROI «FMM.

Ranking the digital competency of luxury brands -- report by LuxuryLab

Created by Scott Galloway, NYU Stern School of Business professor of marketing, and a team of experts, the Digital IQ Index scores 109 luxury brands in 11 categories including fashion, beauty and skincare, watches, and automobiles.

The study, the first and largest of its kind, measures brands on the effectiveness of their digital competence based on criteria including search engine optimization, brand translation, ability to leverage technology, and use of social media.

“2009 represented a tipping point concerning the importance of digital competence in the luxury industry,” says Scott Galloway. “While the industry grappled with double-digit revenue declines, traffic to luxury brand sites increased an average of 61 percent. With this study, we’ve devised a metric these companies can use to benchmark specific features of their digital competence against their competitors, and highlight which area each firm stands to gain the greatest return on incremental investment in digital.”

Get the report here.  

Trademark 101 for designers by Design*Sponge's biz ladies 09

Most designers are very careful about registering copyrights for their designs. At least most everyone KNOWS they should be very careful. But life gets in the way, you get busy and bogged down and sometimes the registration fee seems just a little too indulgent when you look at your cash flow.

But trademarks are very different. 

Here's some advice via the design*sponge blog from Amy J. Everhart,  founder of a Nashville, Tennessee, law firm to counsel clients in the creative industries, entrepreneurs, inventors, business owners, and others in the areas of copyright, trademark, entertainment, the arts and the Internet. She is the author of the copyright, trademark, and entertainment law blog “Lightbulb Moments,” located at www.aeverhart.com/lightbulbmoments.

Amy says, "Trademark issues can arise in several contexts in the design world. You might use a trademark to identify the source of a product, such as a line of note cards or a piece of jewelry. Or you might use a trademark to identify your business, such as an online store or a design firm, where you sell your artwork or provide your design services. (A related concept is trade dress, the distinctive color, shape, packaging, design, or other visual characteristics of a product that identify the source of the product, such as the distinctive shape of the Cola-Cola bottle. David Yurman has successfully sued on Trade Dress issues.)

Below linked is some of the trademark basics every business owner should ponder.

Design*Sponge » Blog Archive » biz ladies 09: trademark 101 for designers.

Luxury Retailers Report Sales Increases

Read today in the New York Times: Of all the retailers hurt by the recession, no group has been pummeled as badly as luxury chains. For months, high-end stores have posted double-digit declines, even as other types of retailers have begun clawing their way toward sales gains.

But new numbers released Thursday show that some of the nation’s upscale chains came back from the dead in the weeks before Halloween.

After months of double-digit declines, Saks, the luxury department store chain, also posted a refreshing number: a 0.7 percent sales increase. The chain, a purveyor of $600 shoes and $2,000 suits, said in a news release that it had “relative strength” in some of its merchandise categories, like women’s designer sportswear, outerwear, jewelry, accessories, and in its e-commerce business and outlet stores, Saks Off 5th.

“It’s showing that there’s stabilization in the marketplace,” said Stephen I. Sadove, chairman and chief executive of Saks, “and I think it shows there was some responsiveness on the part of the consumer.”

Read the article here.

Forrester Expecting Online Holiday Sales to Increase 8%

While overall retail sales are expected to remain flat or down slightly this holiday shopping season, Forrester Research predicts online retail sales in the U.S. will reach $44.7 billion. That’s an 8% increase over the 2008 holiday shopping season, reports MultichannelMerchant.com.

Forrester defines the holiday shopping season as the months of November and December.

“Despite the lingering effects of the recession, the online space remains the retail industry’s growth engine,” Sucharita Mulpuru, vice president/principal analyst for Forrester Research, said in a release. “What’s different this holiday from past years is that online retailers will manage to the bottom line, which will change some of the tactics they have employed in the past.”

According to the new Forrester report, “U.S. Online Holiday Retail Forecast, 2009,” online retailers will strive to balance consumer demand this holiday with profitability. Retailers will cut down on automatic free shipping and institute price thresholds to qualify for free shipping, the report says.

Customer engagement is also a priority this holiday: Expect to see online retailers deploy more cross-channel customer service options and advanced merchandising software. This technology will provide more product information and enhanced social networking tools that will enable consumers to share purchase decisions with friends.

“Tighter offline inventories may benefit the online channel as consumers go to the Web looking for products — and prices — they can’t find in stores this holiday,” Mulpuru said. “Online retailers will be ready for them with a special focus this year on engagement and service.”

15 Reasons Why Consumers Will Leave Your eCommerce Site

How often do you visit a website and find something cute or useful you'd like to buy? And after some clicking you change your mind?

Ever wonder what you (or your web designer) did on your site that has people not go all the way?

Here's a great checklist of reasons why folks do not complete their buying process; from odd linguistics to complicated systems there's a lot of ways to turn off someone who finds something they like on your site.

http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/1350-Conversion-15-Reasons-Why-Consumers-Will-Leave-Your-eCommerce-Site.

101 Ways to Promote a New Blog

In case you can't think of something... here's a great helper!

101 Ways to Promote a New Blog.

And of course, now you'll know when I run out of fresh content, too!

Blogging is a great way to refresh the search engines with your name and to connect with your social media. It's also a good exercise to work out another part of your brain; visual artists can use the mental workout sometimes!