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The Beni browser extension makes secondhand shopping in cyberspace a breeze.
Secondhand Sisters helps you navigate the dos and don’ts of thrifting and upcycling. We’re two sisters — Char and Sophie — who share a love of fashion and the planet. Check out more here!
Platform: Beni
Item purchased: Anthropologie Long Sleeve Fitted Dress
Original price: USD $160
Beni price (Linked to Poshmark): USD $25 plus taxes and duties
The upside
- Curates unique feed based on user’s favourite brands and styles
- Lists items from over 40 online secondhand sites
Things to keep in mind
- Price advertised does not include shipping prices on resale sites
- Only lists products within the US and UK
- Duties may apply when shipping to other countries
Score: 4/5 🛍️
This February, I found myself searching for the perfect outfit for Valentine’s Day. Since I rarely dress up, I wanted to put in more effort than usual for my dinner plans and wear something a bit outside of my comfort zone — think red dress, makeup, heels. However, purchasing a brand-new dress from an ethical retailer felt out of reach financially, and I wanted to avoid fast fashion brands like Shein. So naturally, I turned to secondhand options. After browsing a few resale sites and bookmarking some promising finds to get my friends’ opinions on, I remembered a tool I had been recommended a few months ago: Beni.
Beni is a browser extension (compatible with Chrome and Safari) and iOS mobile app designed to help shoppers find secondhand items with ease. Available in the United States and United Kingdom, it scans over 40 resale sites with roughly 200 million items and curates the best deals based on a keyword or phrase. You can search for specific item descriptions or use the extension to filter through the best secondhand options for a particular brand. For example, as a fan of Anthropologie, I used the app on my phone to filter exclusively for secondhand pieces from the brand across all of the resale platforms Beni searches. Additionally, the extension allows users to “follow” their favorite brands, enabling it to recommend relevant secondhand items based on their preferences. One of the app’s standout features is its ability to link users directly to the original listing on the respective secondhand sites like Depop, making the shopping experience more efficient.
Like other online secondhand marketplaces, Beni includes identifiers such as “New With Tags” or “New Without Tags” to indicate an item's condition, making it easier to assess its quality before purchasing. After clicking on a listing, Beni displays the item details, like the size, brand, price, and description.You can also use the filter at the bottom of a listing to browse similar items from the same brand or discover pieces with a similar style. If a particular item catches your eye, you can add it to your “Saved” collection and easily revisit it later.
After downloading the mobile app, I searched for “fitted red dress” and dozens of listings from various vintage and resale platforms appeared. I then used the size filter to narrow down the options to my specific fit and browsed the available selections. Based on the brands I followed, Beni recommended a ruched red fitted dress from Anthropologie as one of the first results in my search. Originally USD $160, the dress was marked down to only USD $25 (roughly CAD $36) on Poshmark – with the tags still attached! Knowing it would sell quickly, I swiftly scanned the photos and placed my order. (For a guide on ordering from Poshmark, check out my previous story here.)
Unfortunately, since the dress was listed in the United States, I had to pay additional duties when picking it up from my local post office — a frustrating extra cost that soured my experience. Because of this, I’m unsure if I would use the platform again when ordering to a Canadian address.
Although this dress wasn’t something I would normally wear and took some getting used to, it felt empowering to look in the mirror and see myself pulling it off. This experience reinforced the value of secondhand shopping: not just for its affordability, but for the opportunity to step outside my fashion comfort zone while making a more sustainable choice. While the added duties were a drawback, discovering platforms like Beni opens the door to a world of more ethical and budget-friendly fashion alternatives. With so many secondhand options available, I’m excited to continue exploring new vintage and secondhand styles.
