Nearly Newlywed

What: Nearly Newlywed takes a hands-on approach to selling your wedding dress and accessories, with photo and dress inspections — and high fees.

Expected pay: NA

Husl$core: $$

Commissions and Fees: $25 listing fee, plus 40% of the sales price

Where: Nationwide

Requirements: Be legally able to agree to a contract and own a wedding dress or accessories free and clear 

Review:

Nearly Newlywed takes a hands-on approach to selling your gown and wedding accessories, including jewelry, shoes and purses. You pay $25 upfront to list, sending photographs to the site’s team. When the listing is approved, usually within 24 to 48 hours of receipt, your advertisement is posted .

When your item sells, you send the dress to the site; the site inspects it and then sends it on to the buyer, who is given five days to try it on and make sure it suits. If it doesn’t, the dress is returned and inspected again. If the buyer returns the dress damaged, the return will not be processed. You get to keep your portion of the sales proceeds. If the dress is fine, Nearly Newlywed holds the dress in their inventory for 90 days and re-lists the gown. If it sells again, you get the money; if it doesn’t, you get the dress back.

Seller reviews indicate that dresses are likely to sell more quickly on this site than the others. The return policy may account for that. After all, you’re more likely to take a chance on buying an expensive product online if you can send it back, if it doesn’t suit you.

The flip side is that Nearly Newlywed’s process is extremely expensive for sellers because, in addition to the $25 listing fee — the same fee you pay to sites like Still White, PreOwnedWeddingDresses and Once Wed — you pay 40% of the sales price in commission to the site. On a $1,000 sale, that means you walk away with just $575, after commissions and listing fees) versus $975 on the other sites. Worse, if the dress sells for less than $500, the site has the right to take up to $300 of the proceeds, despite the fact that this is far higher than the normal commission.

In other words, the site may take the stress out of the sale, but they do it at an extremely high price. If your gown is not selling elsewhere, it might make sense to give this site a try. But, it would not be our first (or second or third) choice.

What their users say: (From Wedding Wire)

“My dress sold in 24 hours. This far exceeded my expectations. Patty answered all my questions promptly, even after hours and on weekends. She was very helpful throughout the process which was very simple. I listed my dress on other sites and had no luck. With the reputation and following, I highly recommend nearly newlywed.”

“Nearly Newlywed made the process of selling my dress so easy. The website looks great and is very professional from a shopper’s perspective, which is I think why I was able to sell my dress within a couple of weeks. Patti was easy to work with when it came to coordinating and shipping my dress. However, Nearly Newlywed does take a decent cut off the selling price. I guess that is the price you pay for the convenience and the speed of selling. I did not have to get my dress cleaned before it sold, but the cleaning service they provide also looked extremely easy and reasonably priced.”

As far as I know Nearly Newlywed is still the only used dress platform with a return policy, so I wouldn’t buy from anywhere else. Shipping costs $25 each way, but it is great to have your worst-case loss be $50 instead of $100s or $1000s. I also like that each listing includes all the measurement details (bust, waist, hips, height, etc.) – tag sizes are basically meaningless so this is essential practical information, but it’s also nice to get an idea of whether your proportions are similar to the bride in the photos when you’re trying to figure out which dresses will be flattering on your figure.”

“I sold my dress on this website and they made it super easy! I was able to pack up my dress in the smallest box possible, send it to them for cleaning and pressing and a few weeks later I had money in the back. If you are looking for a easy way to sell your dress, this is the place to go!”

“I finally picked a designer gown with an original price of $5500, which was listed for $400 and in nearly perfect condition. Almost seemed too good to be true, but I think it’s probably just from a few years ago, which doesn’t bother me at all. Before I made the purchase, I asked a few questions and requested more photos. I was a bit skeptical about communicating through Patti rather than directly with the seller, but Patti usually got me a direct, helpful answer within a day or so! Impressive. I also went to a shop to try to find something similar to try on to make sure I liked the style. The dress arrived in about 8 days, and Patti sent a nice message to ask if I wanted to keep it, and confirming that I was happy with it. I won’t get to see the dress in person for a few months since I live abroad, but my mom and sister checked it out thoroughly and said the quality is amazing and condition is nearly flawless. I couldn’t be more satisfied with the experience or the end result.”

On those other pre-owned wedding dress websites I thought there were a lot of great options, but once you buy its yours, whether you like the dress in real life or not.Then I discovered Nearly Newlywed and was excited to see that the stress of buying a dress online was eliminated since I would be able to return it and just pay for shipping, no big deal. Losing $50 in total shipping cost was way better of an option than getting stuck with $1000+ dress you don’t like when you try it on. Once I got the dress($5400 retail price, $900 Nearly Newlywed price) I was blown away by the quality of dress, although not my size, I was able to confirm with a seamstress that I would be able to size it for me. Based on my experience, I would highly recommend other brides-to-be shop for their dress here. The only suggestion I would make is that they change their try on policy from 5 days to 10 days, as it would give more time for someone to compare options.”