eBay seller, who would have been happy with beer and baseball tickets, becomes an Internet hero.
"For Sale: One slightly used Size 12 wedding gown. Only worn twice. Once at the wedding and once for these pictures."
With that eBay listing, Larry Star, 42 -- who goes by horseplaypublishing and hails from Seattle, Washington -- wooed more than buyers with his poignant story of a wedding gone awry. Thanks to Web users' driving need to share a good story via email, it became a full-blown Internet event.
Nielsen//NetRatings Overnight Analysis showed that traffic to the wedding dress page on eBay attracted 1.5 million office workers and registered more than 10 million hits. Traffic from at-home users to the page soared 133 percent to 726,000 unique visitors Wednesday.
"I was actually going to have a dress burning party when the divorce became final, but my sister talked me out of it. She said, "That’s such a gorgeous dress. Some lucky girl would be glad to have it. You should sell it on eBay. At least get something back for it.' So, this is what I’m doing. I’m selling it hoping to get enough money for maybe a couple of Mariners tickets and some beer. This dress cost me $1200 that my drunken sot of an ex-father-in-law swore up and down he would pay for but didn’t so I got stuck with the bill. Luckily I only got stuck with his daughter for 5 years."
The eBay listing included a photo and description of what it was like for Star to wear the "$1,200 shower curtain," as it didn't hang quite right on the hanger. He blacked out his face to save face in case his drinking buddies saw him in the gown.
"Actually I didn’t think my head would fit in the neck hole, but then I figured she got her Texas cheerleader hair through there I could get my head in it. Though, after looking at the pictures, I thought it made me look fat. How do you women wear this crap? I only had to walk 3 feet and I tripped twice. Don’t worry ladies -- I am wearing clothes on underneath it. I gotta say it did make me feel very pretty."
But Star's modeling efforts got him more than he expected. The bidding jumped to $15,000 Tuesday, but dropped after frivolous bids were weeded out. The dress sold for $3,850 -- and that's not all. Star also got five invitations to ball games, five marriage proposals, radio interviews and TV appearances, including CNBC and the "Today Show."
"This just goes to show what a little creative storytelling and emailing will do for online promotion," says Leslie Marable, senior analyst, Nielsen//NetRatings. "The auction attracted a large number of Web users in a very short amount of time."
It's unlikely that Star will model wedding dresses for a living, but he has gained firsthand experience with driving Internet traffic and has more interactive plans: "We have a Web site coming that everyone can check out. It will be up soon," he writes.