Wedding Dresses in a women's/juniors store

[tarabornagain]

We are seriously considering discontinuing our wedding gown consignment after 13 months...can't sell the things worth a darn.

Anyone out there having success with this? Would love to hear from others with experience on this, whether it is working or hasn't worked.

[exchangeboutique]

Hi Tara,
I just had a bridal boutique that closed recently bring in their whole store to me---ALL NEW gowns accessories, jewelry, shoes, mother dresses, guests dresse, etc. 2 weeks ago and I have had little traffic and no sales. Still early in the game for me though. Word is not really out yet.
I'll let you know how I do.

[steinmj53]

We discontinued our wedding gown business years ago. We have 3000 sf and we are always looking for ways to make the space more productive. We quickly found out that wedding gowns turn WAY too slowly to justify the space they take, especially since you have to have a pretty big size and type selection to start with to have even a chance of hitting on a bride's dream dress. Our experience? Lots of people want to consign them--nobody buys them!

[karen]

I had the same experience. Everyone wants to bring them in but no one is willing to pay more than $50-$90 for them. Anything priced over $99. customers alway say "I can go to Davids Bridal and buy new for $99.

[tarabornagain]

It's interesting, isn't it? We had lots of try ons, lots of "hold til tomorrow" dresses, and very little sales. I hate calling consignors to pick up items early, but since we only had 31 dresses it wasn't as bad as I thought. We had some that were new with tags and a local bridal store bought some of those yesterday. Hopefully, the rest will be cleared out, picked up, donated, or put elsewhere by the time we have our bag sale.

[specialdayconsign]

Weddings are all i do in my store. I have 81 wedding dresses that are slow to go but picking up. I also have Mother, bridesmaids, flower girl dresses available. I have to admit the veils and glassware/decorations go faster. I would love to have a shop drop their inventory on me....Just saying. Diane/Special Day Consignment

[shoponsecondthough]

We thought we would try the "wedding dress" and see what would happen. In the 9 months that we have had this "In Style" Beautiful size 9/10 dress we have had one person show interest. Sadly, this did not even work out. We still have the dress and are just about to return it. We have tried to sell it by moving it around the store, displaying it with a wedding theme, even moving it to a main window with an entire "family" of displays to encourage buyers. Nothing has worked. Just some food for thought, for us, we have found wedding dresses are VERY hard to sell and will be returning this soon.

[tarabornagain]

Update: We still have 9 dresses in our possession, but they are in storage in an empty unit next to our store, no longer taking up room. This is perfect timing because the flood of incoming prom/formal dresses has started and we are receiving up to 6 dresses a day...the room we have for formals fills up fast!

Best decision! So far, I've only had one upset person but the fact that she had over $50 on her account from some of her casual items selling seemed to mollify her...we'll see.

[maxwell01]

I think discounting wedding clothing, gown and accessories is good idea to increase sales. When it comes to adopt cheap wedding ideas people always like to visit stores who give discounts. At my wedding too we did shopping at www.bestpricefavors.com/product-category/wedding-favors-decorations-supplies/cheap-wedding-favors-ideas/ and got best wedding favors at rates that lowered our shopping budget too.