Wedding Realm, a growing comprehensive directory of wedding vendors, has launched Bridal Store Collaboration (BSC), a free online bridal store-only community to enable bridal stores to help each other solve excess inventory problems by listing excess dresses for sale, swap or loan.
A key feature of the on-line platform is its unique Product Quest, in which store members can request specific dresses from the entire BSC community.
The brainchild of Ide and Melaka Ehigiato, owners of Bridal Trousseau in New Haven, and Bridal Affection in Hamden, CT., Wedding Realm/BSC grew out of a need to solve the inventory issues of their own bridal stores.
“Our BSC feature was carefully designed from our many years experience owning and operating bridal stores, and dealing with the racks of excess inventory that seemed to grow by the season,” explained Ehigiato. “We built the site to help us and the entire bridal community address operational challenges we all face every day. Our goal is to make our community of bridal stores more profitable as we help each other out.”
BSC was designed to help with:
-gowns that are “duds”… that don’t sell in your store but might be a hot seller in another area;
-gowns for imminent weddings, in which the manufacturer does not have in stock, but a member store might;
-gowns that have been “abandoned” at one store, yet in demand at another.
“There are other reasons store inventory gets bloated,” explained Ehigiato. “Mistakes happen in ordering, the bride has dramatic weight fluctuations, gowns get discontinued, minimum requirements continue to increase. BSC is made to help solve all of these.”
BSC is free to join, with each prospective member registration reviewed to confirm their store and business status. There are no upfront fees, and stores can list an unlimited number of gowns. A nominal service fee of 10% is charged only when a sale/purchase is made.
Gold and Platinum upgrades are available that offer additional features such as higher placement in search results by site visitors, increased access and listing options, and 360-degree image capability.
Currently BSC is offering a free month of Gold upgrade to the first 100 stores that join and list a minimum of 10 gowns.
To support the BSC community, a private Facebook group has been created to encourage communication among member stores and with Wedding Realm customer service staff.
For additional details on this platform, registration forms and pricing tiers, visit https://wedding-realm.com/bridal-store-collaboration.