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i thought paypal would weed out the scammers. i had some inquiries from people who wanted to pay by cheque after i said i only accept paypal, so i was like thank but no thanks. i also had several people try to get me to sell for about $500 less than i wanted - i was like thanks but no thanks. so finally after about 2 months, i found a legit buyer who paid my asking price! it was through preownedweddingdresses.com although i had advertised everywhere!!!
by the way, i am referring to my first dress which i regretted. i have worn my real wedding dress yet! but i am already starting to advertise cuz i am hoping to sell it soon after the wedding.
I hope to sell my gown on there too, but don't just brush people off because they are in a hurry. Some people who are looking for a gown really do need it in a rush and that may be why they are looking at used. But I'd list the dress and write that it IS the final price!
I don't think you have to worry about scams as long as you don't send the dress until the money clears into your bankaccount so you have a bit more leverage in this situation. But I did hear Escrow.com was safe transaction site for both buyers and sellers.
Good luck.
@Dsquared: Thank you! I left out the part where the inquiry is also always from a man. This makes me more suspicious. ;) And the person's English is never very good. I know that doesn't mean anything in itself, but when red flags are already waiving, it makes it worse!
@PurpleUnicorn: I'm glad to hear you were able to sell yours! I'll put a listing there, too (so far I've only used the classifieds here and oncewed because I'm so far out of the wedding world I can't even remember the sites ;).
Hehe, yes bit of a seasoned veteran here :) I sold four dresses.
One week is yet too early...Mine took 1-6 months. I sold three on POWD.com and one on the classifieds here. Got some inquiries from oncewed.com but nothing serious. Nothing from Bravobride and only scammers from Craigslist.
I reduced the price on each dress at least once by 10%. This moves your listing up to the top in POWD.com and makes it visible again. Almost all my sales came immediately after a price reduction. I think the problem with other services is if you listed on a really slow or really busy time, people miss it and it gets buried quickly by newer listings.
The ones who want to do Paypal may be legit. Scammers usually want to send you a check. Still if you want to be absolutely safe, do Escrow.com. The commission is a little higher and they only accept wire transfers for wedding dresses (we tried to do credit card once and Escrow.com cancelled the transaction without telling us why) , so you may need to eat up the additional cost if the buyer's not willing.
I always chatted with the potential buyers a little and encouraged them to ask questions. Being on here for so long, I can gauge pretty well who's a real bride and who's not :) I was also very upfront about condition, any defects, sizing and stated in every email I would not accept a return. Better lose a sale due to cold feet than deal with the hassle of a return later.
Another tip...I found it better to list the price higher first than what I expected to get. Gave me room to reduce it by 10% to list it up listings later, and people ALWAYS like to bargain no matter what price you put so it's good to have that buffer.
Hope this helps!
@Dsquared: Okay, so I decided to respond to one of the I MUST PAY THROUGH PAYPAL people after your message, and I think I'm just going to have to go with my gut on these from now on, because this is the response I got when I said "the asking price is the same as on the listing, plus shipping costs":
I am an Oceanographer and am currently on the sea at the moment, i am buying the Dress as a wedding gift for my Daughter and the Dress is going to USA. I want to make it a surprise gift for her,she won't know anything about the gift until they get delivered to her.So i want you to reassure me that the item is in Dress condition as you have described. I can only pay through PayPal. So please kindly get back to me with your payment money request to my PayPal email address at ([email]) So that i can proceed with the payment and after the payment has been done,i have a pick up agent that will come around to pick the item up immediately after you have receive payments confirmation message from PayPal regarding your payment.And how much is your final asking Price
Looking forward to hear from you soon so that i can made the payment out to you soon and complete this transaction....
What a generous oceanographer with pick-up agent. :)
I was a 2 dress bride...I have been trying to sell my first dress for over a year (I want to keep the one I wore) without any luck. I'll be keeping an eye on here to see if anyone has better advice. = )
I sold mine through PreOwnedWeddingDresses.com. However, over a year after the wedding, we are still trying to sell my wife's dress. (She is quite short, which limits the potential buyers.)
I actually had someone who also insisted by paying through pay pal. This was after I suggested using escrow.com, which is reccomended by the oncewed.com. After I send a request through paypal, two days later, I received an email from the person, which was meant to look like an email from paypal to confirm that the money has been paid. I reported the person to the website right away. Another time, I was offered a check and to have the dress picked up. Obviously, I refused to have any further conversations with this person... I guess it wouldn't hurt to reply to all the inqueries, but don't give out any personal information and do not send the dress untill the money is in your account. As far as any other advise, I am still trying to sell my dress so I guess we are in the same situation. Good luck!
I sold one of my dresses within two weeks through oncewed.com. I have three other listings there and one of them is also on recycledbride.com and here in the classifieds for months now. I think there is no secret of success, i guess it just depends on the dress. The one i sold was a Wtoo dress, the ones i didn't sell are Davids Bridal, a vintage dress and one from a cheap brand. I get mails from scammers for my oncewed listings almost weekly. Their content is always exactly the same, but from different mail adresses. When i first got one of those mails i knew immediately that it was a scam, it was probably the same like yours. "I'm i a rush, this is my dream dress, what are the measurements, i can only pay by Paypal, i really hope you accept Paypal" This was supicious because the measurements are in the listing and i also made it clear that i accept Paypal only. I don't respond to those kind of mails. The dress i sold was also here in the classifieds and the girl who bought it contacted me through both listings. That was a good indication that she was really looking for that specific dress and not just a scammer.
I also tried to sell the DB dress on Ebay, but no one wanted to have it. I got a price proposal of 35€ ( ca 50$) which is ridiculous because the dress is new with tags. I have stalked Ebay dresses daily for months and the selling prices are extremely low. 440€ for a Maggie Sottero Reese was by far the highest price i ever saw, followed by an Enzoani dress for only 235€. The rest was mostly around 100 (if it is a popular brand) or around 50 for the rest. But that was Ebay.de (Germany, and in my experience brides here have an awful taste), it might be different in the US or any other country.
I sold mine on Weddingbee and waited until the paypal payment went through to mail the dress. It should in a couple weeks, but I priced it pretty low because we were moving and it also had a little bit of damage.
I had that same Oceanographer bit about a baby crib and changing table I had listed on Craigslist!
@spaniel: Haha, that is shady obviously! Well you know it's just common sense obviously anyone who wants to have someone pick it up is shady. But I think you will be fine! Good luck
Don't be afraid to dictate what happens. That you won't ship it until the money is in your account CLEARED and you won't have anyone pick it up.
:)
Oh how it annoys me when people think I am that dumb! lol
Thank you for posting this subject!! I am trying to sell my dress also and have had no luck. I only posted it a week ago on Weddingbees and Preowned. The 1-6 months expectation to sell was good to know!
I sold one dress I had bought as a sample. I am hoping to sell the second one so that I can become a three dress bride haha! I bought it for a really low price so I sold it for a really low price too :) It was through oncewed, and a month after I had listed it. The lady and I exchanged multiple emails and she paid through paypal and was really happy with it :)
Oh lol I got that email from an "oceanographer" who wanted to surprise his sister with a wedding dress?! Its pretty easy to identify spammers
You guys should leave the scammer's email in your posts instead of editing out! I got a scam inquiry when I was selling my first dress, but it seemed off so I googled the email address. I found a thread like this on a horse tack message board -- he'd sent an email with the same kind of scam to someone selling a saddle on craigslist. You might save another unsuspecting buyer -- the best defense against these people is getting the word out and naming names!
Also, good luck selling your dress, spaniel. I have sold two dresses. The first one took months and I had to drop my price more than I would have liked, so I would definitely suggest being more flexible. I had it listed at what I wanted and got inquiries from the scammer and one other person who never responded back. When I dropped my price to some arbitrary magic number, I got like 5 replies in a week. It's definitely a market thing. The other dress I had purchased at 50% of its retail value so I listed it at exactly what I paid and it sold in about 2 weeks since it was obviously already such a good deal.
Woot! Sold it at preownedweddingdresses.com! Worth the $25 listing fee. :) I listed it at 45% off, sold it at 55% off, and it took about a month.
I am trying to sell two dresses one almost for a year now both new with tags
listed on bravo bride,preownwedding dress, got scammers but whats get me boiling is I payed $25 listing fee so now I post on classfieds .
I sold mine on ebay within a week. It was a DB dress that I purchased for $99. It no longer fit me so I was forced to buy another dress in a bigger size. I started the bidding at $40.00 with a Buy It Now price of $125.00 which included free shipping within the US.
Someone used the Buy It Now feature and I sold it quickly. However, it wasn't a very expensive dress. Might be a little more difficult to sell a more expensive designer gown.
I am currently trying to sell my dress. I am disappointed because before I was married it seemed like EVERYONE was looking for my dress in the size I have. Now, nada!
I have to second the ebay comment above though.. dresses don't seem to do well there. I have mine listed, because I am just used to using ebay for selling stuff, but I don't have much faith that it will be purchased there for the price I am asking and my price is pretty low!
It is, however, an awesome place to BUY a dress. :) Buyer's market for sure.
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Tell me your secrets! ;)
No, really. I only listed it a week ago, so I'm not expecting it to be gone yet or anything, but so far the only responses I've received have been one woman who sounded legit but didn't leave her address correctly (through OnceWed) so my response bounced back, and two people who are IN A HUGE RUSH TO BUY MY DRESS AND WHAT IS THE FINAL PRICE AND DO YOU ACCEPT PAYPAL????!?!?! (I got similar queries when I tried to help my mom sell her dress a few years ago and they were all scams, so I am not responding to them now). If you've successfully sold your dress, where did you list it, and how did you separate the scammers from the real brides?