It seems to be the topic of the week this week – the internet and brides.  I’m not talking about brides who get linked up with their husbands via the internet!!  But rather brides who are looking to get their dream wedding dress or bridesmaid dresses on the internet.

I was prompted to write this blog post after receiving a phonecall this afternoon from lady asking me if we bought wedding dresses.  I informed her that we buy all our dresses off the designers and asked her if she had a dress to sell and was looking for some guidance as to how to sell it.  She told me that she had purchased a wedding dress online and when she received it, it was not as expected and because she had to wait on the dress to be made, she had passed the stage where she was entitled to a refund (from paypal I assume) and was left out of pocket for a dress that she was disappointed in and would not be wearing on her big day.  All I could do was sympathise with her and point her in the direction of sites such as ebay where she could try to sell it on.

Unfortunately, this is a story we are hearing all too often in our shop who are telling me that they are hearing the same stories.  It’s getting to the stage where barely a week goes by without one of my staff hearing of a tale of woe from a bride who is visiting us . Sometimes (and I stress, not very often!) the feedback is positive – whether these people are really easily pleased and have a ‘it’ll do rightly’ attitude, or whether they were lucky enough  to get something of a half decent quality, I’m not sure, but the vast majority that I get to hear first hand has not got good news to share about their experiences.

I spoke to two separate girls this week who decided to order a bridesmaid dress online to see what it was like and then , if they thought they were ok, they would order more for the rest of their bridal party. The first bride I spoke to got hers in the post in an A4 sized packet and made her mind very quickly that her bridesmaids were not going to be wearing them!  A few pounds wasted, but at least she has time to order new ones.  The second bride has a few weeks to wait to see what hers is like….  and an afterthought which just struck me, is that even if she decides to order more, there’s a very big chance that it will be cut from a different ream of fabric and could be a totally different shade to the first one ordered.  Oh dear……

Anyone reading this will be thinking that they couldn’t possible be caught out with a bogus ‘counterfeit dress’ but it can happen so easily!!  The vast majority of reputable bridal designers do not allow their dresses to be sold online.  They deal only with bricks and mortar shops.  Take Maggie Sottero for example.  If I decided to sell Maggie Sottero dresses online (and not in my shop) they would step in and take that label off me.  They would terminate my contract, and they would have no trouble at all finding another eager stockist in my area.  They are my most popular label and one I don;t want to loss – that’s why I would never sell online.  It’s just not worth the risk, and besides, does anyone really want to buy a dress that they haven’t tried on?

This takes me to my next point.  A bride will rarely buy a dress online without trying it on first, so what happens is, she will make an appointment, find her dream dress, and then contemplate buying it online rather than buying it in the shop who bought the dress in and who helped her find this dress.  It’s not always intentional.  Sometimes she goes home and googles the image of the dress to see it again, and finds herself stumbling on a website that is offering it at a fraction of the original price.  And this is where it’s so easy to be taken in.

The website uses the official image from the designer’s website. They even will sometimes use the actual name of the dress and the designer’s name and logo…  but it’s hundreds of pounds (or dollars) less.  The reason they use the designers image is to lure you into thinking you are getting the same dress, but you are not.  This is how most girls are taken in, and if they showed their customers what the dresses really looked like, then most of  them would run a mile!  The dresses will often lack the shape and structure of the designer dresses – the beading will be cheap glass beads and sequins as opposed to crystals and pearls.  Some of the lace fabrics I have seen first hand are truly awful, and many of the satins are what you would expect to see in a flimsy night dress, all creased with no body or substance, and sometimes without any lining.

Online selling is already killing off much of the formal and communion trade in shops in our area, but when it comes to your wedding dress, only the best will do!!  Why waste your hard earned money?  Don’t settle for something substandard for the biggest day of your life.  My motto is, if it seems too good to be true, then it probably is.  I pointed out to a girl this week that these sites are selling them cheaper that what we buy them in for!!  Surely I would buy direct from these china copy websites to save costs rather than put my orders though with the designers?  Not a chance!!  I’m sticking with the real Mc Coys and I know I will be delivering top quality dresses with a full shop service and I can stand over the quality of the gowns and the reliability of the designer’s companies.

And lastly, remember that you don’t have to spend a fortune to get a proper designer dress.  Phone up and ask your local retailers about deals they might have on for buying off the peg. Perhaps they have overstock due to cancelled orders that they can sell for well under the normal price, and most likely, they will have discontinued dresses in store that they are willing to sell for under half price.  You can get a great bargain if you make some enquiries!