Is handmade jewelry usually more expensive? If so, then why?

Yes, handmade jewelry is and should be more expensive than mass produced. As a designer of handmade jewelry http://www.lifeisrosey.com I would like to point out that often my jewelry is the same price as the stuff you get at Target because I don't have even a fraction of the adveritsing expenses they do. When you buy from me, you're buying directly from the designer and cutting all the MANY middle men. Buying handmade products that were made by people in poverty stricken countries where the wages are unfair is not a good practice. We shouldn't enjoy good prices for our jewelry on the backs of suffering people in a far away place. There are a few organizations such as Global Goods Partners who make sure workers are protected with fair trade practices. Better yet, support small business in your own country by finding artisans on Etsy.com - You'll feel much better about the purchase and enjoy connecting with the artisan personally. Sincerely, Sarah Jane Nelson http://www.lifeisrosey.com

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Agreed. It does depend on where you buy the jewelry. If you buy it in America, then yes, it will be more expensive, but if you buy jewelry that was made in the far east specifically by hand then it might be cheaper. Plus it might be kind of cool to wear far-east trend jewelry.

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Handmade jewelry is more expensive because it costs more to manufacture than mass produced stuff. Think about it... each item that is produced is priced at a certain amount and multiply that by the number of items produced and time spent producing them. When you mass manufacture jewelry the costs of production go down since machinery is what's doing most of the work and the cost of purchase goes down from the seller. That's what I understand about the process of hand made jewelry.

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I'm not sure if it is or if it isn't. but i'm gonna say it is. When you make jewelry by hand you have to spend time making each item as unique as possible. that takes time and money. when you mass produce jewelry you inevitably lower the costs of production and you save a lot of time, money, and hassle. you have machinery that's doing the work. But like the first person said, it also depends on where you buy the jewelry. For example, in certain places in the far east where a lot of the jewelry is hand made, which is the standard of jewelry manufacturing, prices might be a lot cheaper. If you want to buy hand made jewelry you should probably look into buying stuff that was produced abroad, in india, taiwan, china, indonesia, phillipines.. places like that.

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Well, actually the answer to your question is quite obvious and straight forward. Usually handmade jewelry is more expensive due to the time it takes to make it. And naturally, the more labor and effort is put into making the jewelry, the higher the asking price would be for it – a correlation which I’m sure is easily understandable. But as a matter of fact, there are some countries where handcrafted jewelry, i.e. jewelry that was made by hand rather than machine, is actually more affordable than mass produced jewelry. This is usually the case in less thriving countries, such as Far East countries for example, where homemade jewelry is much less expensive than machine made jewelry. But of course there are many variables in this equation, and the pricing of handmade jewelry will always be in relation to the materials used on that piece of jewelry. So for example a hand crafted bead necklace, which counts as handmade jewelry by all means, is much less expensive than a handmade gold necklace.

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