A crystal business plan is your roadmap to success, and every crystal shop needs one. Without a plan, you don’t have a clear view into whether your shop is on track to reach your personal and financial goals.
Maybe you’re still in research mode, or maybe your crystal shop has been open for a while. Either way, now is the best time to lock in your strategy.
Creating it is time well spent, because your plan will advise and guide you through all of your future decisions.
A strong crystal business plan addresses all of these areas:
Table of Contents
- Funding and financial goals
- Measuring success
- Your target audience
- What makes your shop different
- What you sell
- Sales and marketing channels
- Managing risk
- Commit to your crystal business plan
Funding and financial goals
Running a crystal shop is fun, but at the end of the day, the main purpose of a business is to make money. Crystal shop owners need a clear vision of how much to invest to get started, and how much profit per month they want to make.
You won’t start making money right away. Like any retail business, there’s an initial investment in inventory and supplies. (See how much I spent to open my crystal shop.)
Sales will be slower at the beginning, and at first, you’ll reinvest most of your profits into more crystals and supplies. So before opening your doors, know exactly how you’ll support yourself and fund the business until it becomes profitable. Plan for at least a year to start seeing significant profits. Have a specific number in mind to shoot for.
Measuring success
For your strategy you’ll determine what are your key metrics, and how will you track them? I track profit, of course, and other metrics like revenue, number of orders, profit margin, and average order size. I can easily find most of these numbers in my Etsy account.
I also track time spent working on my shop, because time is a precious resource. My goal is to maximize the profit from my crystal shop with 10 hours per week of work.
Finally, you’ll need to keep records of all of your business income and expenses. I recommend using QuickBooks or similar accounting software. Not only does it keep you organized for tax time, but you can also see financial reports, and identify opportunities for savings.
Your target audience
As an online shop owner, you need to know who your ideal customers are, what they like, and where to reach them. The more specific you imagine your target customer, the better you’ll be at selling to them.
For example, if your ideal customer is a college student in their 20s who’s exploring their witchy side, they probably want a variety of inexpensive crystals, bracelets, and carvings to build their collection. They follow their favorite crystal shops on TikTok.
Or maybe your ideal customer is a professional woman in her 30s-40s, who wants larger statement crystals to bring calming vibes to her home. She browses for crystals on Pinterest and Etsy.
Or maybe he is a retired man in his 50s-60s, who enjoys collecting rare specimens. He joins Facebook groups for mineral collectors, and searches for specimens on eBay.
As you can imagine, each of these buyers requires a different marketing and sales approach.
What makes your shop different
There are plenty of crystal shops on the Internet. What’s the secret sauce that makes your shop stand out to buyers?
What does your brand look and feel like, and what ideal customer does it attract?
Check out my free crystal shop checklist for the steps to create your brand.
What you sell
This is the sourcing part of your strategy. Think about your ideal customer. What crystals do they want to buy? Do they want tumbles, jewelry, carvings, clusters, spheres, towers, specimens? Which materials are popular right now? What are other shops in your niche selling?
Then, determine which wholesale crystal suppliers meet your needs. (Here’s more info on finding and selecting crystal suppliers.)
Finally, consider your standards for ethical sourcing. How much screening are you willing to do to ensure your crystals are conflict-free? One way is to avoid so-called “conflict crystals” like Caribbean calcite, Congolese citrine, and lapis lazuli.
The best way to know the origin of your crystals is to buy them directly from the mines.
Sales and marketing channels
There are many options for hosting your online crystal shop. I cover the most popular ones here – Where are the best places to sell crystals online?
Once you know which platform/s you’re using for your business, then decide how you will reach the ideal customers and bring them to your shop. Social media is a given; everyone can easily benefit from having an Instagram and/or TikTok for their crystal shop.
But, don’t sleep on other marketing tactics like email, SMS (text) marketing, pay per click advertising, and search engine optimization (SEO). These techniques are more advanced, but they reach customers who are ready to buy right now!
You don’t have to show up everywhere at once. There aren’t enough hours in the day. To start, choose 1-2 marketing channels that you enjoy using and you believe will be most effective.
Managing risk
What happens if you lose access to your Instagram account? What do you do if your main supplier shuts down? The longer you’re open, the more important it is to diversify your sales channels and suppliers.
If your shop is on a platform like Etsy or Instagram, it’s kind of like renting a room in a house. These companies allow you to move in and use their amenities – like web space, payment processing, or a built-in audience – but none of it actually belongs to you. They can change the rules, raise the rent, or kick you out for little or no reason.
Fortunately, most crystal sellers don’t experience big issues like these. But you still need a plan for how you’ll reach buyers in case something like this happens.
We all saw how global supply chains were disrupted by the pandemic. And trade tensions between China and the US are a looming concern.
My recommendation is to develop relationships with suppliers in different regions of the world. That way, if the barriers to sourcing crystals from one region become too high, there are other options to choose from.
Commit to your crystal business plan
Good for you for thinking through your business plan! The next step is to write down all of this information. Your strategy won’t help much if you forget what it is.
I suggest using a business plan template to jot everything down. By committing your goals to paper, you’re actually more likely to achieve them!
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