5 Tips for Buying Handcrafted Silver Jewelry Online

You've just found the perfect handmade silver jewelry design and you're ready to buy it. But shopping online is a little intimidating. What happens if your purchase doesn't arrive? How can you be sure you're buying from a reputable company? And will your payment information be safe?

Don't worry, we've got you covered with these five tips! These tips will help guide your way and make buying handmade silver jewelry online an experience that's as simple and stress free as possible!

1. Know the basics.

First of all, do your research. There are a lot of scams going around the handmade silver jewelry market. So make sure you do your homework and ask lots of questions.

Is the jewelry for sale handcrafted? If you're worried about buying a slug stamped bar of soap or some cubic zirconia like I was, then making sure it's handmade is really important. It sounds silly but a lot of people are selling bad silver jewelry online under the guise that it is handmade. In reality they're only mass producing cheap silver and selling it as "handmade". If you do find yourself in a situation like this, you should immediately contact the company to see if they can provide an audio or video recording of the process that was used to make them.

What are the processes and materials that they use to make their jewelry? If you're buying silver jewelry online, make sure to ask about the methods of fabrication. I made the mistake of buying some cheap silver from a company that used a "hot dip" process. Basically, a laser pulls molten silver out of a vat. It's then stamped with any logos or designs that the manufacturer wants, dried and hardened in an oven and then smelted again. Not only did this method result in Fingerprint Proof Silver, it also resulted in my receiving silver from China.

Another important question to ask about is what type of silver they use. While 99.9% of silver used in jewelry is 14k, many companies are still using sterling silver. The difference between 14k and sterling is the purity level. Sterling silver can be specified as "sterling" or "hallmarked" and is primarily in the 18kt range or higher.

Sterling Silver with a minimum purity of 925 will not tarnish but will change color and turn blackish over time with age. It is also lower in value than 14k, which is equal to .

Conclusion: You should check to make sure the company that you are buying from is using 14k gold or sterling silver, and you should ask what their definition of "handmade" is.

2. Check out reviews.

This is a big one! While it's true that no one likes to leave negative reviews, it's important that potential buyers know about them. Positive reviews can be helpful too if they've addressed some of the issues people have brought up in the past.