A bride asked me lately what the catch was with purchasing discounted wedding gowns on the internet. “It all sounds too good to be true” were her words. Initially I was surprised that she thought there was a catch then I discovered that having been in the business for a long time I was taking my own knowledge for granted. One time I explained the pricing methods she gave me a rye smile and said “So I really can get a bargain online without compromising on quality”. Conversing with her rang a bell to me that buying a wedding dress is, for majority of the brides, a fresh experience and probably there are a lot more more brides who simply needed to be given a bit of insider knowledge to realise the fantastic price cuts they can have online. Here is a general overview of how the High Street puts a price their dresses.

The manufacturer produces the gowns usually in a country where labour costs are relatively low; China, India etc. They sell the gowns to wholesalers in the USA Europe or Australia who then place their label on the dresses. every Label wholesaler, you remember the names, then increae the price and distribute the dresses to their preferred high street outlets with recommended retail price rules. They do not want to create competition among their outlets so price cutting is frond upon.

The High Street then increases the cost to the recommended retail price to cover their costs and make a profit. There is nothing wrong with any of that; it’s the method business works. Therefore why online sellers can discount their wedding dresses so much?

There are a couple of areas where internet distributors can make you huge savings. First they can get rid of the middleman and purchase directly from the maker; the down side to this is that you don’t have a brand to brag about. The next discount comes from the reality that internet overheads are really low compared to running and staffing a high end outlet.

There is another and not quite so obvious saving which is made from shipping and handling costs. Internet dresses may only be transported once from the manufacturer directly to your home whereas a High end dress is transported two or three times before you receive it.

Jason Myers is a professional writer and he writes mostly about womens interests news. He’s also interested in womens issues.