Costume Exchange
- Thread starter Katarzyna
- Start date
wyllo
New Member
hmm, how to make it safe... maybe require that all participants pay a refundable deposit to a responsible party? Something like the deposit you pay for an apartment -- the money is not spent unless there is damage or a failure to ship dress, etc. And you get the money back when you decide to leave the exchange.
It would also be good to make it as transparent as possible. Name/location information should be available (although maybe not posted on the website for people who want to maintain privacy).
It would also be good to make it as transparent as possible. Name/location information should be available (although maybe not posted on the website for people who want to maintain privacy).
mamboqueen
Well-Known Member
Maybe we would need to charge a "registration" fee to have some money in the pot.
Cleaning is also something to consider, and if someone's dress gets damaged. I guess they would have to be dresses you can part with without pain.
Cleaning is also something to consider, and if someone's dress gets damaged. I guess they would have to be dresses you can part with without pain.
mamboqueen
Well-Known Member
Then maybe you have "levels" of dresses....
Laura
Well-Known Member
I can build web sites (including hooking up to PayPal and doing Perl scripting), and I have my own server, so as long as we keep this relatively simple I can host it. So we don't need to worry about that end of the logistics.
I have some ideas:
(1) Anyone who wants to join will fill out an application form with a full set of measurements and also personal information like real name, address, phone number, and so on. We can have an "approval" person who double-checks that these bits of info are true. I think we should also have someone we know vouch for the other person. Those of us here know each other from the boards, but I have friends who aren't part of this online community. I could bring one in if I vouch for her that she's on the up-and-up. Not allowing in a complete stranger will keep scammers from entering the circle and stealing our dresses.
(2) Dresses being exchanged need to have a dollar value assigned to them. We will have to agree on a formual for determining worth -- I like to start with the purchase (or production cost if you sew your own) of the dress, less 10% each time the dress is worn. So, a $2000 dress would be worth $1800 if worn once, $1620 if worn twice, and so on. You can assign a worth that is lower than whatever we agree upon for the formula, but not higher.
(3) If you exchange a dress for one that is worth more than yours, then you have to pay the difference in cash to the person you exchange with (unless the two of you agree to pay a lesser difference, or to forgoe the cash exchange).
(4) We should work out some kind of insurance policy, but I don't know what or how.
(5) I'd need a little bit of money to register the web site domain and set things up. Maybe everyone entering the exchange circle could pay a small membership fee the first time they join.
(6) As the dresses go 'round we'll keep a history attached to each one as to who wore it when. That way we'll avoid over-use situations where the same dress keeps turning up in the same area over and over.
(7) We should establish a cleaning/repairs/rhinestone replacement policy.
What else? Keep the ideas coming!
I have some ideas:
(1) Anyone who wants to join will fill out an application form with a full set of measurements and also personal information like real name, address, phone number, and so on. We can have an "approval" person who double-checks that these bits of info are true. I think we should also have someone we know vouch for the other person. Those of us here know each other from the boards, but I have friends who aren't part of this online community. I could bring one in if I vouch for her that she's on the up-and-up. Not allowing in a complete stranger will keep scammers from entering the circle and stealing our dresses.
(2) Dresses being exchanged need to have a dollar value assigned to them. We will have to agree on a formual for determining worth -- I like to start with the purchase (or production cost if you sew your own) of the dress, less 10% each time the dress is worn. So, a $2000 dress would be worth $1800 if worn once, $1620 if worn twice, and so on. You can assign a worth that is lower than whatever we agree upon for the formula, but not higher.
(3) If you exchange a dress for one that is worth more than yours, then you have to pay the difference in cash to the person you exchange with (unless the two of you agree to pay a lesser difference, or to forgoe the cash exchange).
(4) We should work out some kind of insurance policy, but I don't know what or how.
(5) I'd need a little bit of money to register the web site domain and set things up. Maybe everyone entering the exchange circle could pay a small membership fee the first time they join.
(6) As the dresses go 'round we'll keep a history attached to each one as to who wore it when. That way we'll avoid over-use situations where the same dress keeps turning up in the same area over and over.
(7) We should establish a cleaning/repairs/rhinestone replacement policy.
What else? Keep the ideas coming!
Katarzyna
Well-Known Member
Every time I wanted to get started on it, I started feeling that it can get terribly complicated. 1st of all you have to consider the value of the gown. The more valueable, the less likely you are to want to ship it to another coast. But on the other hand, the nicer the dress, the more likely it's been seen a lot locally.. so you would want to exchange wioth someone far away... Perhaps we could set it up like a gown rental more than an exchange so that people will still pay for the gown, but if we get a lot of people involved, we can have a lot better selection than most rental places...
Laura
Well-Known Member
We should agree on what the exchanges actually mean. I consider them to be sales, so if you exchange a dress don't expect to ever get it back again -- the person who received it in the exchange has the right to sell it to anyone for any price. Or we could make up a different policy. I just think we should strive to keep the policies simple.
Laura
Well-Known Member
Katarzyna said:
I'm not in favor of this. I view the exchange as a way of getting rid of dresses that I don't intend to wear again while getting a dress that I do want to wear without having to pay a lot of extra cash. But if you want to set up your own rental business, then that could be a very interesting project to take on.
Obviously no exhange will happen unless the two parties involved agree to it, so you wouldn't have to worry about getting stuck with a dress you won't wear.
standardgirl
New Member
Anything involving changing hand of money or other valuable is hard because there is always one party that would have to "pay" first.
Maybe we can setup a dress exchange booth at a major competition and go from there? This way, people can see the dresses immediately, and the payment can be doen in person. We just have to advertise it before the comp so that people will bring their dresses. In a comp like Embassy, or Manhattan, we get dancers from all over North America and even overseas. There should be lots of opportunities to exchange dresses with people far away.
Maybe we can setup a dress exchange booth at a major competition and go from there? This way, people can see the dresses immediately, and the payment can be doen in person. We just have to advertise it before the comp so that people will bring their dresses. In a comp like Embassy, or Manhattan, we get dancers from all over North America and even overseas. There should be lots of opportunities to exchange dresses with people far away.
looking to set something up with a group of poeple. I was thinking of exchange as swapping dresses around rather than selling, but I don't know..
Laura
Well-Known Member
Katarzyna said:
I agree. If I had the money to pay that kind of deposit, then I could just buy the dress outright.
I've done exchanges before, with one of my clients. With Twinkletoes, in fact. I made a dress, wore it a few times. I sold it to her, then made another dress. One day we both realized that we'd love to wear each other's dresses, so we exchanged them. They were both worth about the same, so we just called it an even exchange. It worked really well for us because she basically got to wear two different dresses in a short period of time while only really forking out cash for one of them.
Laura
Well-Known Member
standardgirl said:
This could be rather difficult. The established dress vendors might not like this sort of thing. I know of one rental vendor that some established vendors organized against to keep out of a major comp. Not all comps or vendors are like this, but one has to be careful and realize that our presence might not be welcomed.
Also, the set-up fees for vending at a comp can be pretty significant. A few years ago a friend of mine and I enquired about having a booth to sell used dresses. There is an up-front vendors' fee, and then we would have had to pay a commission of 10% of our sales. We couldn't afford that so we chose not to vend.