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- More and more budget – conscious brides are increasingly looking for dresses from a growing number of companies selling dresses and occasional wedding accessories at great prices.
- The rise of companies such as Our Story Bridal, Stillwhite and Wedding Recycle suggests interesting potential between the $ 72 billion marriage sector and the resale market, which is expected to reach $ 51 billion over the next five years years.
- According to a Nielsen study, resale wedding dresses resonate in millennia that are more than twice as likely as baby boomers to search for sustainable products.
- Visit the Business Insider home page for more stories.
The millennial generation may be delaying marriage and reducing the number of knots, but when they opt for marriage, they find ways to do it cheaply, starting with the wedding dress.
According to The Knot, the wedding dress costs on average over $ 1,300, an exorbitant price for the millennia of money that hope to offset the cost of a dress that they will probably only wear. Once. To help shoppers navigate the emerging world of the occasional bride, companies such as Our Story Bridal – a bridal boutique resale in New York – and ecommerce sites such as Stillwhite and Wedding Recycle appear from more and more frequently to propose alternative options.
The emerging market for bridal resale marks a prominent place between two booming industries – the bridal industry, which now represents an estimated $ 72 billion, and the resale market, which is expected to reach $ 51 billion. the next five years thanks to the rising popularity of brands like ThredUp and Poshmark. In June, the luxury consignment retailer The RealReal became the first resale company to go public with a valuation of $ 1.5 billion.
Read more: We visited The RealReal before it went public and understood why it is leading the luxury resale market
"The bride of modern times is much more savvy in terms of money and respect for the environment and sustainability," said Jess Walker, Marketing Manager at Stillwhite. "The brides began to think," Okay, I only wear this dress for five hours. Why should I spend $ 4,000 on a dress and then keep it for the rest of my life when I can recover that cost? "
According to the US Census Bureau, three out of ten young adults in the 18 to 34 age group have already been married, compared to six out of ten in 1980. Analysts believe that this can be attributed to the convergence of factors such as economic precariousness. persistent recession and the impact of the student loan crisis estimated at $ 1.5 trillion.
Emphasize cost reduction and sustainability to appeal to millennia
Nevertheless, for young couples who choose to say "yes", they do so more and more according to tradition, finding methods that reduce costs and support a circular economy, such as the purchase of synthetic diamond rings and selection of sustainable suppliers. the marriages. According to a study conducted by Nielsen in 2018, Generation Y women are more than twice as likely as baby boomers to buy sustainable products at a rate of 75% versus 34%.
Stillwhite – founded in 2010 by Australian couple Bruno & Ingrid Szajer – was designed to meet the needs of these environmentally conscious young couples, Walker said. The brand operates as a platform allowing users to sell their dresses online, having first paid a $ 20 entry fee and created a stillwhite profile. Similar to sites such as Poshmark, interested buyers can browse by designer and style to find an option to their liking before sending a message to a seller asking them to ask questions and ask for additional photos . Buyers and sellers can also schedule a meeting time to try out the outfit if geography permits, or buy safely on the site.
Today, Stillwhite is one of the most important resale sites for wedding dresses in the world, with nearly 50,000 active listings and a $ 30 million business figure. A quick scroll of the homepage shows a wide variety of prices, styles and sizes, including a $ 179 Galina dress, a $ 430 Reform dress and a $ 5,000 Pnina Tornai dress.
"At the time when Stillwhite started, it was not really a thing to sell your dress online," Walker said. "But that's where it is [the founders] saw an opportunity because there were so many brides that they knew that they were leaving their dress in their closet or under the bed. "
Like online consignment brands such as The RealReal, which was starting to expand into retail, The Story Bridal wanted to provide a hands-on, practical experience in nuptial resale. While stores like Kleinfeld's "Say Yes To The Dress" continue to attract many brides to browse clothes at prices of up to $ 80,000, Our Story Bridal is trying to replicate the experience of dresses already worn.
"We differentiate ourselves with bricks and mortar and keep our inventory, unlike a website where everyone is trapped and where you have dresses where you do not know what they look like or what state they are in. find, "said Ana Maes, co-founder of Our History. "We offer a very upscale experience, we like to compare ourselves to the best bridal designer shops where you get a full service."
Like Kleinfeld, Our Story is also located in New York and asks visitors, by appointment, to try dresses at discounted rates of up to 65%. According to Maes, most dresses come from local sources and it is estimated that 30 to 40% of them are already worn. The remaining dresses in the collection are samples that come directly from the designers.
In the future, Our Story and Stillwhite have stated that they expect that a growing number of consumers will opt for bridal resale.
"It's such an important market and we're focusing more on sustainability and how we can help wives understand that they are really helping the planet by reselling," he said. said Walker.
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