The best romantic gift for wife?

Print-on-demand jewelry is bling with a message.

“The Perfect Gift?” Are you kidding me, I just want to not screw up!

It’s that familiar time when holidays or birthdays or anniversaries approach. When desperate husbands start asking their mates “what would you like for your [special day] this year honey?”

For some husbands, just remembering those special days is a challenge, and asking their wives what they want is an easy way to score points.

But asking your wife to help you come up with an idea for her own gift is a pretty low bar to hurdle. After all, the whole point of giving gifts on your loved one’s special day is to make them feel special, not you.

If you want to make it special you need to come up with gift ideas on your own, that surprise and delight your wife. Even if that means it’s time to search on Google or YouTube for ideas for “top gifts for your wife.”

Those Google and YouTube searches may lead you to print-on-demand jewelry. If you’re not familiar with the term, these are popular jewelry designs that are customized with sentimental or otherwise engaging inscriptions.

Figure 1. A good example of print on demand jewelry. Go Jane Austen!

At first glance, POD jewelry checks off lots of the boxes that make it a great gift. It comes with a meaningful message, it shows you put some thought and love into the selection, it has an attractive design and it’s something a wife can wear as a reminder of your love.

But you still have a lot of choices if you want to make it close to a perfect gift. Here are some important factors to consider, then I’ll share with you what I think are two of the best gifts you could give:

Figure 2. What to look for in a perfect print on demand jewelry gift.

1. Quality

Print on demand jewelry is not expensive, but the perceived value of the gift goes way up if it looks and feels expensive. If the jewelry is made of silver or gold, so much the better. If the jewelry uses lower cost gemstones, such as cubic zirconias, they may not be mistaken for diamonds, but they can still look elegant.

One of the most popular print on demand jewelry makers, GearBubble, creates their pieces from a zinc alloy base, with a 0.2 millimeter gold plating. This design is fairly durable with a distinctive heft. The front designs of the pieces are coated with a hardened resin insert to protect the design features and give them a lustrous finish. It presents a sentiment in an attractive way, but it’s not something most adults would wear if it didn’t have a meaningful message. You can see an example of this kind of jewelry below in Figure 3.

Comparable POD jewelry manufacturers are Beeoux.com and Shop3d.io.

Another popular U.S. POD jewelry maker is ShineOn, with manufacturing and assembly performed in their New Jersey and Florida facilities. Their pieces are made with surgical steel, sterling silver and 18k yellow or white gold, with shatterproof liquid glass over custom design elements. Depending on the design, they also feature settings of cubic zirconia. The quality looks and feels higher than the example shown in Figure 3.

No matter the comparative quality of the jewelry itself, the inscriptions are generally the most important element in making it meaningful to the gift recipients. Most popular POD jewelry pieces use trending inspirational, sentimental or humorous quotes.

POD jewelry is not intended to be high-end designer jewelry and you will not find settings with expensive gemstones, unless a piece is custom designed. Print on demand jewelry is nearly always in the very affordable range, and designed to be worn on a daily basis.

2. The Message

Just as when you buy a greeting card, you want the POD message to capture the essence of your own feelings, not just to repeat a catchy phrase because it’s popular. You may be able to make your spouse feel special with the necklace below, using the popular verse “To my wife, I loved you then, I love you still. Always have, always will.” It’s a little catchy, and a little sappy. But even an emotionally reserved husband could say this and not sound too sentimental, right?

Figure 3. Example of a print on demand pendant necklace imprinted with a popular phrase.

So if you’re shopping, by all means see what’s popular and available that you think your wife would appreciate, and if you want something more original or more heartfelt, you can also find that in POD jewelry.

As an example, consider the card inscription from the feature photo at the top of this article:

“My fortune is not in cars, houses or bank accounts.

It’s not even in my life’s work and accomplishments.

I’d trade them all for that look of love in your eye, for

your touch, and every simple thing you do for me.

I only have one treasure in my life, and that is you.”

Not everyone will like this sentiment, but if it resonates, you won’t find many copycats.

Another approach riffs on the POD message using YouTube as the medium.

Disclosure alert: this YouTube video playlist about POD products is published by the author of this article.

3. Originality

You can’t walk into a physical store and find much print on demand jewelry. Generally, you can only buy these products from online designers and manufacturers. So in that respect, the designs are exclusive.

Even so, most POD designs have a marketing life. Typically a designer will come up with a clever or insightful phrase shown to good effect on a necklace, a ring, a bracelet, a dog tag, or even a coffee mug or tee shirt, that resonates with consumers.

If enough consumers share the design on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or other social media then the design “goes viral.”

A certain percentage of viewers will also buy the products offered with the design. As the popularity of the design and product sales take off, other marketers will copy it or produce variations of the design on every type of merchandise imaginable.

Eventually, so many people will have seen the design that it will no longer feel original or special. Sales of the design will start to plateau, then drop off as consumers find newer and trendier original designs to enjoy.

It’s just part of the life-cycle of a print on demand design. Sooner or later the novelty will wear off, people will get bored with the design and move on to the next appealing product.

4. Design

There are a number of Print On Demand manufacturers in the U.S. and other parts of the world, who have mastered the design and production of jewelry and other merchandise that serve as attractive “canvases” for the marquee POD message feature.

Many of these POD suppliers also offer their own designer messages on their jewelry. But, as described previously, all designs have marketing lifetimes. Designs that are popular today will be out of fashion and boring tomorrow.

So POD suppliers need a constant influx of new and original message designs. And, there is no cookie-cutter formula for producing winning designs.

Designers may fall in love with their own creative messages that they script for POD jewelry, but the only commercial measure of success that matters is how many consumers will vote for a design with their wallets.

For this reason the POD business model needs an “open source” platform. By and large, suppliers provide the jewelry designs and manufacturing, and small business marketers develop and test the messages that go with the jewelry.

If you shop at GearBubble.com or ShineOn.com you will find a relatively small selection of designs, but they do feature many historic best-sellers.

Independent designers may use GearBubble or ShineOn for their manufacturing and fulfillment, but the designs are their own. You can find these designers and their products on Google, Etsy, Pinterest, eBay, Amazon, and many other online locations.

Going back to the husband-to-wife gift market as an example, there is always demand for unique and attractive birthday, holiday and anniversary gifts. Small business marketers work together with POD jewelry suppliers to offer great jewelry designs for husbands looking for gifts that will delight their wives.

Because of the open source nature of the business, shoppers looking for POD jewelry for their wives are guaranteed to have an amazingly large selection of design choices.

As previously described, many marketing designers just follow whatever designs are trending. They take elements of the POD message designs, make small changes and market them on different pieces or brands of jewelry. And, a certain percentage of marketers who are only interested in making a quick buck may even copy popular designs outright.

Here are variations of a popular design that is pretty easy to find in the marketplace.

Figure 4. Two popular POD jewelry designs, using the same message: “To my gorgeous wife, If I had to choose between loving you and breathing, I would use my last breath to tell you I love you.”

As you can see in the above example the necklace designs are quite different, but the POD message is the same. Chances are, neither of the marketers behind these products was the first to use the phrase, but they saw it was trending and figured to themselves, why not take advantage of something that’s working in the moment?

Would your wife appreciate this sentiment in a gift from you? If she would, you’ll be able to find this exact phrase on whatever kind of jewelry or other wearable or drinkable merchandise she prefers.

5. Customizability

Many POD designs are offered to consumers with options for buyer personalizations. Would you like your Granddaughter’s name inscribed on a keepsake pendant necklace? How about your wedding date and other personal information inscribed on the back of watches given as groomsmen’s gifts? Or a photo of your pet on merchandise of your choice? The possibilities are endless.

The ability to customize jewelry and other merchandise with names or images that are meaningful to customers makes every one of these designs unique and original. What customer would ever get tired of seeing their loved ones’ names on their keepsake jewelry?

The tradeoff with customizable jewelry is that it takes a little longer to produce and it’s a little more work and more expensive. Also, not all designs are good candidates. Obviously, pieces of jewelry with more imprintable or inscribable space lend themselves more readily to personalization.

If customized jewelry is important to you, but you’re having trouble finding what you want, Etsy and Pinterest are two great places to shop. Both of these platforms are great showcases for unique designs and also have sophisticated search capabilities. It’s easy to get started by entering a phrase, such as “personalized pendant necklaces,” or “to my wife,” “to my husband,” “to my daughter,” “to my son,” etc. into the Etsy or Pinterest browsing window.

6. Affordability

The design and popularity of POD jewelry is driven by the desire for consumers to wear necklaces or bracelets or rings that convey messages that are meaningful to them. The value of those messages is a market commodity that keeps overall prices within certain ranges.

Marketers must be able to cover supplier costs for jewelry materials and manufacturing, and make a profit on top of that, based on what consumers in their market are willing to pay.

For these reasons, basic quality POD jewelry usually doesn’t exceed $30 in retail price. POD jewelry with more expensive materials or more demanding manufacturing processes may sell in the $50 — $60 range, depending on consumer choices of any precious metal options.

If personalization is available, this may add $10 — $15 to the base retail prices.

The highest quality print-on-demand jewelry may be equivalent to costume jewelry in appearance, and is priced in the same general range. If you consider the added value of a “gift with a message” the prices of POD jewelry fall convincingly in the affordable range.

7. Presentation

Presentation is an important part of the experience of receiving a gift. A beautiful presentation can make even the humblest gift seem special. On the flip side, it will feel like something is missing if even an expensive gift is not wrapped and presented in a special way.

This is where the marketing approach taken with one of ShineOn Jewelry’s design categories really “shines.” By taking the POD message off of the jewelry piece itself, ShineOn is able to focus on creating more attractive and traditional types of jewelry designs that people would wear even without inscriptions.

But ShineOn gets the best of both worlds by also showcasing the POD message with the jewelry piece (see the left photo in Figure 4 above). This double-threat means they can offer attractive standalone jewelry that also takes advantage of the huge demand for “message jewelry.”

Adding the POD message to an attractive gift box is a genius presentation stroke. The gift box heightens the gift-receiving experience, adds prestige to the jewelry piece, and provides a superior backdrop to display the marquee message. On top of all this it also achieves a trifecta triple win, by performing the greeting card role that is traditionally expected with any birthday, holiday or anniversary gift.

Here are two choices for the best POD jewelry gifts you could give your wife:

This first design is not my own. I have no affiliation with this designer. It’s here because I think it does a great job, for the most part, with the above seven “perfect gift” criteria:

Figure 5. One of the best print on demand jewelry gifts you can give your wife.

1. The quality of this piece is high. Surgical steel with a shatterproof liquid glass coating. There is also an option to finish this product with 18k gold.
2. The message feels personal and heartfelt.
3. Originality: The interlocking rings is a popular design feature, but you don’t see the combination with this particular message everywhere, so it still feels fresh.
4. The overall Design is very attractive, including the fonts, the textured background, the color contrasts, the interlocking rings and the message.
5. This necklace also has a customization feature. The gift buyer can have the piece inscribed on the back with whatever meaningful information is desired, including names, dates, or a personalized message.
6. Affordability is good for a product of this quality. The price range is $40 to $65, depending on whether you select gold plating and a personalized inscription.
7. Presentation is also good. The message and interlocking hearts design feels like a natural part of the jewelry pendant design, and the piece comes with a presentation box, at no additional charge.

The next design, below, is my own. I’m obviously biased, so judge for yourself whether you agree that it’s a perfect print-on-demand gift for a wife.

Figure 6. The author’s personal choice for the best print on demand jewelry gift for a wife.

1. The Quality of this jewelry is very good. It features 14K white gold plating over surgical steel with a 6mm cubic zirconia primary crystal setting and smaller cubic zirconias on the bands.
2. The Message feels personal, heartfelt and emotional. It’s also created to make the recipient feel special and treasured.
3. The love knot jewelry design is not Original, but it’s a classic design with obvious symbolism and beauty that doesn’t go out of style. The message itself is completely original and unique. If this message design gains popularity it will be copied and may eventually feel stale to buyers, but right now there’s nothing else like it.
4. The love knot jewelry Design is very appealing and goes well with the message. A darker background color in the box behind the necklace would show off the light colors of the cubic zirconias and white gold to better effect.
5. This necklace does not have a Customization feature.
6. Affordability is good for a product of this quality. The product is priced just below $50, which is discounted from the normal white gold premium cost.
7. Presentation is very good. The love knot necklace would stand on its own in for visual presentation, so the box with the message to the wife really makes it dramatic. A separate gift card would just get the way of this complete package.

There are beautiful and amazing print on demand jewelry designs created every day. If this article has sparked your imagination, I hope you’ll go to Etsy or Pinterest and find out what you like.

If you are interested in my designs you can find out more by clicking on the images in this article or visiting my TFWhen.com online store. If you click on any of these links and buy a product I will make a small profit from each sale.