Dress Swapping

[Fretful_Porpentine]

Alrighty, I'm using all you people to test a little business idea I had. So, I've heard a lot of comments on the forum concerning how expensive nice ballroom dresses are. Especially as a soon-to-be broke college student, several hundred to several thousand dollars is a little much to be blowing on one outfit, no matter how beautiful. So I was thinking, since a lot of dancers, I gather, only wear their dresses a few times, wouldn't it be a good idea if dancers had a place where they could swap dresses with other people?

I was thinking of building a website where dancers could post pictures of their dresses, what sizes the dresses are, some details about it, where it's been worn (comps, etc.) and so on and so forth. Then they could find other people, preferably in different locations (so repeats at the same comps wouldn't be a problem) to trade with. There wouldn't be a charge (well, maybe a small service charge), plus shipping, naturally.
Of course, you couldn't just go online and get a free dress. You'd have to put one of your own up for swapping as well. Or you'd have to pay the owner to buy it, or something like that. Anyway, I thought it might be good, because, say, I don't want to wear the same dress all the time, so if I found another college student in, for example, California, who wouldn't be in the same competitions as me, I could trade dresses with her.

So does this sound like a feasible idea? Maybe something like this already exists. I'm not sure. Also, sorry if it's kind of incoherent. I'm a little brain dead.

[Katarzyna]

So funny, i mentioned the same idea before. We have a huge discussion about that buried somewhere in the forum. but in the end nothing came of it (although I do a bit of that personally with people I know.. from other countries )
It might be easy on personal level, but difficult to set up...

but good luck :)

[Fretful_Porpentine]

I just basically wanted to know if there would be a market for it if such a service were offered. I don't really want to waste my time if no one would use the website. On the other hand, this seems like one of those ideas that I'll get really excited about, and then never actually get around to doing.

[Katarzyna]

Sounds really good, but logistically can be tough... it seemed like it would become too complicated when I thought about it. But am sure there is some simple way about it..

[Fretful_Porpentine]

Do you mean as far as setting up the website, or actually getting the things traded?

[Keelzorz]

Well, into this will come discussions about the value of the dress. Can I trade my $150 dress with the stones falling off for one of Katarzynia's multi-million stoned wonders? Please?

Would you institute a level-system of dress-values? Trade a Level-1 (my falling-apart $100 dress) for another one, or possibly a level-2? Far away from Katarzyna's Level-6000 dress?

Would you get trade-credit based off the value of the dress you sent away? Would you then spend your trade credit?

And yes, I am an engineer. :cool:

[Fretful_Porpentine]

Yeah, I was thinking about how to resolve that problem. Your idea sounds pretty good! To ensure fairness, it seems like site administrators would have to categorize each dress, but that seems like such a time-consuming process. I really like your idea of trade-credit. It's much better than just swapping. That way, if someone has two level-5 dresses that they want to give away, but they need a really AMAZING dress for an upcoming competition, they can get one level-10 dress. Does that sound ok? Also, I think people should be allowed to give customer evaluations the way they do on eBay. And I think there should be a reward and punishment system. For example, if someone gets a bad review because the stones all fell off the dress they traded, they should be fined some of thier store credit. Conversely, if someone gets consistently excellent reviews, maybe they can get a little bonus.

I'm pretty sure the practical logistics of this can be sorted out. My only concern is that my html abilities are nowhere near up to the task to make this sort of website.

[wooh]

It honestly seems like instead of "trading" 2 cheap dresses for an expensive dress, it would be easier to sell 2 cheap dresses then buy an expensive one. Otherwise, it seems you'd end up with a glut of cheap dresses traded and no expensive ones in the mix. Or the lone soul that trades an expensive one would never get their value out of it. By selling, you get the value of the dress. Trading, you'll end up with people taking advantage of the system. I'd be happy I got a Kat level dress for my bedazzled t-shirt, but Kat would only have the satisfaction of me having a thumbs down by my name.

[Keelzorz]

Individuals could carry a rating, not based on how many dresses they sold, but based off whether they traded up,down, or at the same level. Almost like a dress "karma" - if you traded a 5 for a 6, you'd get -1, and later on you'd have to trade another 5 for a 4. Does that make any sense?

I agree that this could end up with a glut of cheap dresses....hmmm.
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What about making it be a "dress-buddy" kind of site? Search for a person at a similar skill level & dress size, and have a buddy relationship with them - help them fix/stone dresses exchange, and switch dresses between them? You mentioned this in your first post, FP, about having a dancer who goes to different comps that you could swap directly with. So, more like a personals site? For example, I'm Keelzorz, I dance silver styles in New England, I'm a size zero/two, and I have these three dresses in my closet". Then, if RandomDancer42 (also a size two) from Florida wanted to borrow my dress, we could trade, especially if I saw something I wanted to try from her collection. Then you'd be enouraged to stick within your field, and not borrow million-dollar gowns for bronze, and it would also make it more person-to-person.

Heck, we could do this off a message-board, even. Have a dress-buddies catagory, divide that down by style (smooth/standard, rhythm/latin), possibly by price range of gowns (<$500, $500-$1000, >$1000) then have individuals start threads with images of their dresses. You could then give feedback right in the thread about how the loan/help/trade went, and if you recommend working with that person in the future. (Message boards are wicked easy, compared to writing a site from scratch)

So mods....can we start a new section of Dance Forums? :raisebro:

[Fretful_Porpentine]

Good thinking! And less work!

[Katarzyna]

Well, into this will come discussions about the value of the dress. Can I trade my $150 dress with the stones falling off for one of Katarzynia's multi-million stoned wonders? Please?

Would you institute a level-system of dress-values? Trade a Level-1 (my falling-apart $100 dress) for another one, or possibly a level-2? Far away from Katarzyna's Level-6000 dress?
:cool:So funny, my dresses being used as an example of "multi million stoned wonders?

toughing on this subject, i just feel that exchanges etc are easier done on a smaller scale individually... when both people talk to each other, agree on things... idea of a store is good, but really difficult to implement

[fascination]

I think the problem is that we all want to borrow someone else's...we just aren't so hot about loaning our own out...if they were a significant investment

[fire_dancer]

I think it sounds like a great idea, although I do see the limitations in it. Keep me posted if you ever decide to do that, though, since it would be a major help with competitions!