Starting a Jewellery business in India is interesting and challenging because of our diversity in religion, language, taste, culture etc. By arming yourself with the right knowledge and careful preparations, you can start your jewellery business off on the right foot. As a business owner you should think about the real reason behind starting the business. Is it your passion for jewellery or is it because of the profitability or is it because you have been involved in the same industry for long or anything else. This will actually help you to understand whether it is your right fit.
Taking care of a few legal and financial steps is an important part of getting set up. Here”™s what you need to know about choosing and registering your jewellery business name, obtaining your business license, setting up a separate bank account for your business, and more
Choose Your Business Name
One of the most exciting parts of starting a jewellery business is choosing your jewellery business name. Your business name is an important part of your image, defining who you are, what you do, and what style of jewellery you create. It will be on all your business literature, your website, and much of your packaging.
Many people make a mistake of choosing a name for short run. For example, if your line of business is silver jewellery and your store name is ”œClassic Silver Jewellery” it sounds good. But if you are coming out with gold items later then the store may not be correct. In that case either you will have to rename your store name or treat it as a separate entity. Either way there is time and cost involved. Unfortunately the problem does not stop there the change will have an impact on website, jewellery tags ,earring cards, business cards, self-inking stamp, and everywhere else. When deciding on your jewellery business name, I recommend using either all or part of your own name, or an intriguing word or phrase that gives an impression of your work. Whatever you choose, just be sure it”™s not a name that limits your business so you won”™t outgrow it.
Registering Your Business Name
Now that you”™ve got the perfect business name, the next step when you start jewellery business is to be sure no one else is already using that name, and then register it to protect it. Registering your jewellery business name is important, because even if you”™ve been operating for years under your business name, if you haven”™t registered it, someone else could register it tomorrow and you would lose the right to use that name.
First, check the web to see if someone else has registered your chosen business name. Depending on your line of business, you may need different registrations and licenses.
1. Recommended- Shops and Establishment Act: This registration is mandatory for physical shop and plan to employ people.
2. CST/VAT registration: If you are going to be selling goods, then VAT or CST (between states) may be needed once the annual turnover crosses 5 lacs.
3. Service Tax : Registration for service tax is mandatory and may be required once your annual sales turnover crosses 10 laces.
4. Professional Tax :This tax is mandatory if you have even one single employee. Each state is allowed to create its own guidelines, so it would be advisable to check whether it is mandatory to register for professional tax in your particular state.
All these registrations and licenses may vary from state to state, so please do check your state”™s guidelines and regulations (exemptions, if any) to know better.
Opening a Separate Bank Account for Your Business
Another vital step when you start a jewellery business is to open a separate bank account for operating your business. Your business account is where you”™ll deposit all income from your jewellery business, and pay all expenses. You can write yourself a check from your business account and deposit it into your personal bank account to pay yourself from your business profits.
Keeping your business and personal finances separated in their own accounts also helps you with your business record keeping.
Choosing the location
Choosing the right location is a key thing for any retail business. Before selecting a particular location you need to do a market research and find out where successful jewellers are located. Find out the main reason for their success. Is it the visibility of the store, or is it easily accessible for the customers or is it placed based on the people purchasing capacity in that locality etc. Once you understand that then it will be easier for you plan your location. Definitely for jewellery shop busy commercial location especially a shopping locality. Space choice is also a vital part for a retail store. Every sq feet counts as rentals are very high for commercial space. So its very important to know exactly how big or small your shop should be.
Investment to start Jewellery Business
Once you have chosen the location you will have to invest on advance, rentals, interiors, lighting, furniture and fittings, computers and equipments etc. Before getting into the business you need to know how much of money is required to complete the entire project. Always have your budget 30% more than the actual budget. There is always a tendency to spend more and also rise in prices. But make sure that extra spend does not increase more than 30% of the estimated budget. Apart from this money is required for other things like recruitment, marketing etc. You should make sure you have enough working capital to run the business for minimum 6 months without expecting any income from the business for the first 6 months. Lot of people miss out in this by expecting revenues from day one and shut shop in quick time. If we get revenues from day one it is well and good. Any business should break even within 6 months otherwise there is no point in continuing in it especially a jewellery store. Of course there some businesses where it happens even after one year.
Recruitment
Recruiting the right kind of people in your business is the key to success and sustainability. People are the face of the company especially in a B2C business. Their approach and behavior to the customers play a major role in getting loyal customers. Just like how loyal customers are key to profits loyal employees are key to long term success. In simple words, loyal employees = loyal customers.
Marketing
Marketing is another important aspect in retail business. Customers will come to your store only if they know or hear about your products and services. You need to advertise regularly on all possible mediums. If you take an Indian scenario, Jewellery shops are generally promoted by newspaper advertisements, TV ads, Hoardings and Theatre advertisements. Depending on your budgets you need to plan accordingly. You need to choose the right medium whichever will yield you more returns
Managing the business
Now that you have set up your store, the next challenge is to manage it efficiently. Apart from your leadership capabilities you should also make use of resources in the market to run your business smoothly. These tools are nothing but software that helps you in your business on a daily basis. For example, in your jewellery store you need to bill your customers for every purchase. This can be done either manually or using a billing software. If it is done manually you will have lot of paper work and difficult to get reports or analyse the purchasing behaviours of the customers. As a business owner you should be able to analyse your business in order to create new strategies. This is where software for POS (Point of Sale)/billing, accounting, inventory and customer relationship management comes into play.
POS (Point of Sale) software
First and foremost software required for a jewellery store is POS software for billing the customers. One of the focal points of any retail business is the cash register. The ability to process transactions and tender cash are essential to the efficient operation of business. A POS system is a computer software and hardware networked together to track sales and inventory as they occur. POS systems will solve a multitude of problems in your business.
Since implementation of a POS system is requires a large investment in time and money, the selection of software and hardware requires careful research into the features available and associated costs. For the new business, a POS system is a smart investment. The savings in labor hours and increase in efficiency makes balancing staffing easier, and the POS system automates many time-intensive tasks. Most POS software helps you stay aware of how your business is performing.
Many owners and managers find that the reports generated from the POS system invaluable in the day-to-day and long term management of the business. From revenue and profit reports, ordering reports and product sales reports, the POS system offers a perspective of the total business that is difficult to grasp in other ways.
Bar Code Scanner
Next in the list is Barcode Scanner device. Putting a barcode on an item means it can easily be tracked and counted. Usually this is part of an automation process. The automation bit ensures that the data from the barcode is captured quickly and accurately allowing a business to be more efficient. And it”™s not just the lifecycle of the retail product that is tracked, if you have a loyalty card then that has a scan-able barcode. Did you know your loyalty card makes you into the equivalent of a product with all your shopping history stored in a computer somewhere?
But having stated all the above, in most cases the barcode is the bit that we relate to is actually just a set of characters that can be read by a scanner. In most cases it is the application and systems that are behind the barcode that make the barcode appear so powerful.
If you believe that you business can benefit from this type of automation then your next step is to decide exactly what you want to be able to use the barcodes to do (barcodes are just the means to track a product/order or process) and if you want to integrate the results into your current operating system (most companies do). So it is very important to make sure that your POS software has barcode integration.
Accounting Software
Apart from the POS billing, any business has to maintain book of accounts which needs to be audited every year. For this purpose, there will be accounting software used by any business. Purchase of goods or raw materials is one more activity that is happening in the store. This also has to be maintained in order to make payments, reordering etc. Similarly Salary payment and other purchases also have to be accounted. This is where accounting software comes in handy. Before purchasing the accounting software make sure it is integrated with your POS software as well.
Customer Relationship Management(CRM)
CRM software is designed to help businesses meet the overall goals of customer relationship management (See CRM definition). Today’s CRM software is highly scalable and customizable, allowing businesses to gain actionable customer insights with a back-end analytical engine, view business opportunities with predictive analytics, streamline operations and personalize customer service based on the customer’s known history and prior interactions with your business.
CRM software is commonly used to manage a business-customer relationship; however CRM software systems are also used in the same way to manage business contacts, clients, contract wins and sales leads.
Customer relationship management software is offered in a number of installations including on-premises (where the software resides inside the corporate firewall and is managed by IT operations), or as web-based (”œcloud” applications) where the software is hosted by a CRM provider and accessed by the client business online via the provider’s secure services.
In the software market there are so many companies offering accounting, billing and CRM separately. When all the above mentioned software are purchased separately without integration between the software then the idea of analysing and planning strategy is lost. It”™s because when these functions are done separately using different software it becomes a lot difficult to get the kind of reports you want on time. This will actually hinder your business progress. So it is very vital in choosing the right kind of software to manage your entire business. A Cloud ERP solution can integrate all your business functions under one roof and helps you to stay focussed on scaling up your business. There are so many ERP solutions available in the market. Reach Accountant”™s ERP is one such solution which is affordable, reliable and user friendly which is tailor made for jewellery store. Probably you can try it when you are looking for an ERP solution for your business.
Hope this article would have covered the broad aspects of Jewellery business. Of course, there are lot more things like vendors, stocks etc which is not covered. However to begin your Jewellery store the points discussed will act as guide!
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