#48 It's not magic, but it feels that way

These new product updates just made shopping secondhand easier than ever.

Since starting Beni, our goal has been to make resale as easy as buying new because we believe sustainable shopping should be accessible to everyone.

And, our browser extension does a pretty good job of accomplishing this goal by showing users resale deals while they shop their favorite retail sites.

But, we’ve found that even though people love the extension once the have it, requiring users to download the extension/app and login to be able to use Beni may have unintentionally made us gatekeepers of our own tech.

So, we’re opening the resale floodgates with a new web-based, un-gated experience that allows anyone to access our aggregated database of 40+ resale sites, no download required.

Users can now:

• Search for things directly – whether that’s a specific item like a “Veronica Beard blazer” or more of a categorical vibe like “bright colored sneakers that feel timeless and classic.” 

• Experience the tech behind the browser extension (without the actual extension) by adding “checkbeni.com/” in front of any product URL to see pertinent results for that item.

Try it for yourself with these J. Crew boots.

AND! Because this experience is completely un-gated, users can also now share results directly with friends who don’t have the app or the extension to help bring more people into the world of resale!

You might be wondering why you still need the extension or the app now that this product exists, but there are a few ways in which they amplify your secondhand shopping experience:

1. The Beni Chrome extension is your secondhand shopping sidekick. Instead of having a specific product in mind, you can browse as normal and Beni will point out if a cheaper resale alternative exists.

2. Since bringing back search (!!), the Beni iOS app is like the Google-meets-Pinterest of secondhand shopping. Similar to checkbeni.com, you can search anything you want, but with the app you can also organize those finds into collections that you can come back to at any time or share with friends.

   

3. In both the extension and the app, you can set your preferred sizes so you always find the right fit. When using checkbeni.com you’ll have to filter to your preferred sizes with each new search query.

WOW! That was a lot of information and we hope you’re as excited about these new features as we are!

We’ll share some ways for you to get involved below, but for now it would be a HUGE help if you can help get the word out about this new product by sharing this email anyone you think would love or benefit from it!

Want more Beni news and updates? Make sure you’re subscribed and follow us on our journey as we build the future of fashion.

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How you can get involved

• Support us on Product Hunt — If you're into Product Hunt, please share your feedback in the comments of our launch, and upvote if you are impressed!

• Give us feedback — Compliments are awesome, but feedback is gold. Please reach out to support@joinbeni.com with any thoughts or ideas, and we’ll do our best to bring them to life.

• Share your finds in your Instagram stories and tag @join_beni! OR re-share our posts (like this one) with friends. It helps us get one step closer in our goal to make resale the norm!

• Work with us! — If you have a related business, social media account, newsletter, podcast, etc. and are interested in collaborating, please respond directly to this email, and we’ll get back to you!

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Why we do what we do (Reason #141)

Here are just a few of the messages we received requesting that Search be added back to the app. If there’s a feature that you want to see, always share it with us because we can make it happen!