Tough times call for smart marketing solutions. Remember the Good Old Days? Commodity gold prices pegged at “only” $500 an ounce back in August 2007. Then gold jumped to $850 on world markets in a short three months. (See Gold Jewelry Keywords at 850 Per Ounce.) These days, barely one year later, gold prices flirt with $1,000 per ounce.Here’s a handful of smart marketing solutions from successful Jewelry Wholesalers who found alternatives to the Golden Rule, which measures jewelry sales only by its weight in gold.

1. Composite Jewelry
2. Feed the Bling
3. Re-peg to Silver Standard
4. Franchise
5. Stalk the Auctions

1.   Composite Jewelry Collections: Lower the precious metals content in rings, bracelets and necklaces. In demand now: Enamel Fashion Rings in jewel-toned colors …

and highly polished stainless steel …

2.   Feed the Bling: All that glitters is not, necessarily, gold. Julie Ann Apparel responded to Reaching for the BRASS … GOLD … SILVER Ring with:

I couldn’t agree with you more! Let’s face it, the economy isn’t in the best shape…but that doesn’t mean that women can’t grab a trendy look for bargain prices. Rhinestone and jeweled dresses, blouses, and accessories are all the rage right now.

For Alt Bling, see also Leather-plus-Rhinestone combinations at a source like Treasure and Treasure. Specialty: Accessories Bling.

3.   Re-peg to Silver: After noting the 50%-plus jump in gold prices in only 90 days in the          WholesaleU Blog (linked above at Gold Jewelry Keywords) — and after the gold dust settled during Holiday Shopping Season 2007 — a jewelry manufacturer in China added:

Yes, it was a holiday season that saw wholesale jewelry orders saddled with more silver orders. Wholesale gold jewelry will be out of the limelight for some time; and buyers might shift to silver jewelry or even other luxury items like clothes, shoes and watches. Wholesale silver jewelry needs to be produced in larger quantities to be profitable …

4.   Franchise: When precious metals prices climb, one way to maintain margins is to expand your reseller and sales network … without bumping up payroll expenses. A jewelry wholesaler who operates from the front end of the supply chain (design and manufacture) through to Wholesale-Only distributors, has jumped down the jewelry supply chain to Turnkey Retailing. See J. Goode-In’s Icon Bijoux program, which delivers a pre-ticketed and pre-displayed jewelry inventory of best-selling styles – with minimal initial investment and low entry barriers – to point-of-sale retailers. No-hassle, turnkey franchises clone your sales staff.

Stalk the Auctions: Register with online jewelry auctions and set your automatic price alerts. It’s the most efficient way to source value-priced jewelry inventory, especially from store returns, liquidations, seasonal closeouts and estate sell-offs. Search Top Ten Wholesale’s network of directories and listings at Wholesale Jewelry to find the hottest styles, plus specialty collections of bridal, gemstone, zirconia, magnetic and hip hop jewelry and accessories. See also Bidz.com for 15,000 live jewelry auctions per day, under “Top Wholesalers” at the previous Wholesale Jewelry link.