Beaded Jewelry on the Market

Kokula’s role in the project Beaded Jewelry is to provide place for selling Croatian traditional beaded jewelry in our shop in Dubrovnik and to share our experience to other partners in the Project. In order to do that we signed a contract with Mladenka Sunara, a jewelry designer and manufacturer from Split. She made a large assortment of jewelry inspired by traditional Croatian beaded jewelry for us.

We offer necklaces, bracelets and earrings inspired by kraluš (necklace) from:

Moslavina

Posavina Sv. Nedelja

Baranja

Košic from Samobor Kajica

Kolarin from the island of Mljet

To attract customers we printed and displayed national poster and the booklet of the Project. We also advertised the Project and Mladenka’s jewelry on our Facebook page Kokula art and craft, on the Project web site and on TripAdvisor.

Of course, a personal contact with the customers in the very shop, the information about the jewelry and the project, did the trick, too.

We are glad we can tell you we are on the right track. The interest of the customers is stupendous. Even those who are not interested in beaded jewelry think it is a great idea to start a project like this one. They agree that’s the best way to preserve our heritage. They specially like the way we “update” traditional jewelry and make it wearable and modern. And they buy it gladly.

We have created a special written survey for monitoring customer interest in traditional jewelry in the shop, as well as an online survey accessible on our Facebook page and on the website of the Project.

• https://www.facebook.com/pages/Kokula-art-craft-shop/121649794638493

• http://www.beaded-jewelry.eu/kokula-art-craft-shop446

We have gathered some information which can be useful to you in your future work. We have sold 132 pieces of jewelry from the end of May till the end of 2014.

It’s a shame we haven’t started earlier, because April and May are the right months to start your business in Dubrovnik. But we still have several months ahead and we will keep you posted.

Necklace Bracelet Earrings Total

Moslavina 17 56

Posavina 7 1

Sv. Nedjelja 3 4

Baranja 1

Kajica 1

Mljet 5 7 30

Total 34 68 30 132

The most popular piece is Moslavina bracelet.

Bracelets are best selling items partly because they are more affordable then necklaces, but mostly because they are wearable on every day bases, easy to match and light to wear.

The best selling necklace is Moslavina in six rows for the same reason as bracelet – affordable, easy to match and wear.

The best selling colour is black, then red.

They also like grey, golden, green and silver ones. Customers are not interested in white or light blue. We have sold just one white Moslavina bracelet as a present for a bride, which can help you if that’s going to be your target customer, or market.

They like design and natural materials jewelry is made of (glass and red coral beads and alpaca buttons, although they would prefer silver).

The price range of the jewelry in Kokula is from 20 euro for the earrings to 100 euro for the red coral Mljetski kolarin. Every single customer said that’s reasonable or affordable.

Although all the customers, including men, like jewelry, or at least the idea of redesigning traditional beaded jewelry, girls in their 20-es and women between 40 and 55 are the most numerous buyers. As far as we can judge, they are intellectuals, or at least well educated ladies with a style.

They come from all over the world, most of them from high developed

countries like USA, Canada, Sweden, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, Australia, but also from Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Malaysia, South Chorea and others.

Conclusion

• There is interest in traditional beaded jewelry• Customers are interested in ethnographic background of the jewelry• Well developed countries are the target market• Two groups of customers are the target market: - Young girls - Women over 40-es• The price range of 20 – 100 euro is reasonable and affordable• Customers prefer quality over quantity• Black and red are the best selling colours• Bracelets are the best selling item

• If you are going to start your own small business (and I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t), our experience will hopefully help you. So will other things, too. You probably remember the excellent presentation on marketing by Mr. Gabor Kolumban in Odorheiu Secuiesc.

Maslow’s pyramid of needs

Maslow's hierarchy of needs in advertising

• Biological and Physiological needs - wife/child-abuse help-lines, social security benefits, Samaritans, roadside recovery.

• Safety needs - home security products (alarms, etc), house and contents insurance, life assurance, schools.

• Belongingness and Love needs - dating and match-making services, chat-lines, clubs and membership societies, Mc Donald’s, 'family' themes.

• Esteem needs – jewelry, cosmetics, fast cars, home improvements, furniture, fashion clothes, drinks, lifestyle products and services.

• Self-Actualization needs - Open University, and that's about it; little else in mainstream media because only 2% of population are self-actualizers, so they don't constitute a very big part of the mainstream market.

Mr. Kolumban stated seven elements that are important for the handicraft product, and you’ve got them all.

• Give solution to the different levels of the Maslow’s pyramid

You give the solution for the esteem needs in the Pyramid building self esteem and respect from the others selling specific piece of designed jewelry

• From product to teaching and cooperation with the customer

Give the customers information about beaded jewelry and ethnographic background about it, teach them about tradition, custom, national heritage, they are interested in it.

• Use e-marketing

What’s e-marketing? That’s the use of Internet (website and e-mail) and digital media (wireless,

mobile, cable, satellite) capabilities to help sell your product.It’s about creating a strategy that helps your business deliver the right product. It’s purpose is to find, attract, win and retain customers.

E-marketing objectives define what you want to achieve through e-marketing campaign. A useful framework for developing effective e-marketing objectives is the 5 S’s framework, which includes:

SELL – the productSERVE – customersSPEAK – communicate with customersSAVE – reduce costSIZZLE – build brand identity

Pay attention that your e-marketing objectives are:SPECIFIC – specify what is to be achievedMEASURABLE – expressed in numbers, percentages, euro etc.ACTION ORIENTED – which actions need to be taken and who will take themREALISTIC – achievable with the available resourcesTIME SPECIFIC – establish specified time frames(For example: to achieve 10% online sales in the 1st year to increase 15% sales in 2016. to reduce cost for 20% through e-mailing etc.

• Be personal

• Be unique

• Use niche markets

What’s niche marketing?It’s providing a specialized offering to a defined target market.You have a specialized product and Kokula experience says your target market are young girls or/and well educated ladies over 40-es from developed countries. But it’s too broad for a campaign. The trend is toward smaller niches in order to reduce competition. One solution is to find “undiscovered” but still profitable niches usually by searching out the best keywords to target. You have to be as specific as you can to make your choice and identify the geographical range and the customers you want to target. For example: young girls from Japan. Or: American university female professors etc.

• Remember – the artist is a product.