Got divorced? Dreams Recycled offers way to re-sell formal items
Orlando Business Journal
Tiffany Beverlin, who got divorced last August after 15 years of marriage and being a stay-at-home mom, decided to sell her wedding ring and dress online. And that, in turn, let to the creation of a new company.
In March, Beverlin formed Heptagon Concepts LLC dba Dreams Recycled, and by June she had a soft launch of her firm’s website, funded with money from the divorce. Dreams Recycled is a website where users can sell wedding rings, wedding dresses, prom dresses and shoes, plus decorations after formal events.
“I’d like to make people become lifetime users,” Beverlin said.
The market is huge: 47,000 couples file for divorce every week in the U.S., and on top of that, the average prom in 2012 cost more than $1,000.
So far, the company has more than 1,000 people listing items on the site. Beverlin founded the company, in part, because she found it tough to get a job with a 12-year gap in her work history.
“When I tried to get back into the workforce, I was told, ‘We think you’re great, but in front of you there are 500 applicants who don’t have a 10- or 12-year gap in their work history,’” Beverlin said. “You didn’t take your brain out and sit it in a drawer for 10 years. You’ve been using it differently.”
On the flip side, weddings are a $51 billion industry in the U.S. with almost 800,000 people employed in it, according to IBISWorld. And Dreams Recycled is catching a piece of that. “Do people shop for wedding-related items at a discount, which is typically at somebody else’s loss? Yes,” said bridal consultant and events planner Elisa Delgardio, owner of Orlando-based A Flair for Affairs. “There have been plenty of brides I’ve encountered who’ve gotten designer wedding dresses online at Craiglist or eBay. There’s a market for it.”
Jim Carchidi
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