It’s prom season so that means girls are on the hunt for perfect new dresses and trying to push their old ones out the door. Most girls wear a formal dress once and then it’s done, so at a couple hundred dollars a dress, you have to sell the old ones to be able to buy new ones. Plus let’s be real after proms are over there are very few if any opportunities to wear those dresses. So girls everywhere are using social media, consignment stores, word of mouth, and everything in between to try and sell their dresses.
I’ve had and sold many dresses and helped friends sell their dresses too using social media groups and as someone who is in the formal wear industry often, and a frequenter of formal sell groups, I’ve got some tips for any of y’all that are trying to get rid of those old dresses!
1. Let’s start with where to sell them! I’ve had the most success selling dresses on Facebook. I use multiple Facebook groups to sell dress, all you have to do is post a picture of your dress, include price, size, location, and details about the dress. Then girls who are looking for dresses will comment on your post and it goes on from there. In those same groups, girls will post “ISO” post, meaning they are “in search of” a specific kind of dress or dress style and you can always comment on those post to get your dresses out there! Girls often use Poshmark to sell dresses. They are similar to the Facebook groups, only it’s an app solely for reselling clothes. The only downfall of this app is it takes a percentage of your sale as a service fee. Another opportunity is that some towns have consignment dress stores and some stores and organizations do consignment events to sell formal dresses for prom specifically!Your first step to being successful in selling dresses is to figure out where is the best/ easiest place for you to sell and to push your dress on that market. You can’t just post it once and hope someone somewhere sees it. You have to work that market.
2. The next biggest factor is the price you are trying to resell it at. My general rule of thumb is that you should list it’s price at no more than half the price you paid. I understand that you may have only worn it once and it may be in perfect condition, but it’s used so 50% of the original price is the best starting point in my opinion. Even at half, sometimes that’s too much for a used dress, I’ve found that selling dress at the $150-250 price point is easiest, while you may not be getting as much money for your dress, at least you are selling it. $250 is much better than $0 if it’s never gonna sell for $400. From a buyers standpoint, I could go buy a brand new dress for $300- $400 so why would I buy a used one? As a seller you should always think about how much the dress is worth, how popular or how much of a demand is there for it, what brand it is, and what condition it’s in when selling. Just think $200 in your hand is much better than $200 hanging in a closet and the longer you wait trying to sell it, the less it’s worth becomes over time.
3. Keep the original price tag from the store you purchased the dress. It’s a great way to be able to prove exactly how much you paid for the dress and how much it’s worth.
4. Take good pictures of the dress from a front profile, back profile, and side profile, without any filters, in good lighting. You want to show the dress off looking its best!
5. Make sure the dress fits the person wearing, you don’t want to make the dress looks less desirable because it doesn’t fit the model. Make sure the model it wearing heels that are the right height too. You can’t really see a dress if two inches of it are in a puddle on the floor around the girl.
To my girls trying to resell these dresses best of luck! Don’t give up because there is a market out there somewhere for your dress, you just have to find it, and work it!
All my love,
Brooke <3
