A New Era in Ecommerce and Retail is Emerging

Covid has Accelerated the Shift to Retail E-Commerce

Over the last year, we have seen a lot — from Peloton order backlogs, to wearing sweatpants to work…at home, and even to TikTok surpassing Facebook as the World’s most downloaded app. The point is: The Pandemic has forever changed the way we exercise, work, and consume. Perhaps one of the greatest shifts of them all is the way we shop. Consumers have embraced online shopping with enthusiasm and retailers have responded with speed and innovation — this cataclysmic shift has created ecommerce changes that are here to stay.

With a new ecommerce appetite and shifting consumer preferences, the retail industry is ripe for disruption. To understand these shifts, Chingona Ventures performed a deep dive into the drivers of this next wave of retail growth:

• Industry Transformation: “We are in the early stages of a radical transformation in retail. Consumers are prioritizing sustainability, retailers are starting to embrace resale, and policy makers are getting on board with the circular economy. Pollutive industries have the power to transform when technological innovation collides with the motivations of consumers, businesses, and government. We’ve seen it with electric cars, solar energy, and next, circular fashion.” — James Reinhart, thredUP Co Founder & CEO
• Increased Sustainability Focus: According to the BCG-Vestiaire research, 62% of consumers would buy more from fashion brands that partner with secondhand players. In addition, circular business models, including recommerce, could enable the industry to cut around 143 million tonnes (~315B lbs) of Greenhouse Gas emissions in 2030.
• Consumer Habits: 45% of millennials and Gen Z say they refuse to buy from non-sustainable brands and retailers. Thrifting became a new pandemic habit that is expected to stick — 33 million consumers bought secondhand apparel for the first time in 2020, and 5.4x is the amount resale is projected to grow over the next 5 years, accelerating post-covid. $390B is the amount consumers saved buying secondhand (source: BCG Report).
• Secondhand Market Growth: Secondhand apparel, footwear, and accessories represent $30 billion to $40 billion in value worldwide. The global secondhand market will likely grow over the next five years by a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15% to 20% (source: BCG Report).

The recommerce industry transformation and shifting preferences towards sustainability and “thrifting” indicate the secondhand market will continue to grow. So who is solving for these shifting trends, you may ask? None other than…Beni.

Why We Invested in Beni

Beni, a browser extension that surfaces curated alternatives from secondhand marketplaces, is the newest addition to the Chingona Ventures portfolio. Founded by Sarah Pinner and Celine Mol, Beni makes secondhand shopping simple — here’s how it works:

1. Find an item you love — like an Outdoor Voices dress
2. Click the Beni browser extension
3. Beni surfaces secondhand options for that item from the world’s leading recommerce sites
4. You can find an option you like and navigate to that site for purchase

By helping shoppers find secondhand clothing more seamlessly, Beni helps online recommerce retailers like Treadesy and TheRealReal target and acquire new shoppers, increase purchase frequency for existing shoppers, and sell products more quickly.

During early research, the Beni team discovered that, while people increasingly want to buy secondhand, most of us don’t actually want to shop secondhand. In other words, users don’t want to “learn a new way of shopping.” With Beni’s browser extension, shoppers can buy secondhand without changing how they shop. This ability to integrate directly into existing shopping habits and aggregate across recommerce platforms gives Beni it’s competitive edge.

Beni’s hypothesis: “If we make it simple, shoppers will buy secondhand, a $640bln opportunity in the fastest growing retail sector.” Beni’s ability to aggregate across retailers and simplify the customer experience will increase in value as the market expands.

While Beni is positioned as a first mover in this browser extension, secondhand market space, it’s not just the idea we believe in. Sarah and Celine have what we call, the “Chingona Factor” (or badass factor). Sarah, the CEO and Co-Founder, has experience in sustainability as the interim Head of Sustainability at Imperfect Foods and is receiving her MBA & MS in Design Innovation at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. Celine, the CTO and Co-Founder, has an MS in Environment Science and Management, has Co-founded a sustainable apparel startup, and has built a globally-used enterprise data collection platform. Beni’s “Founder-Market-Fit” is strong.

What’s Next

As the newest investor in their pre-seed round (led by XYZ Ventures), Chingona Ventures is thrilled to announce that we will have the chance to partner with Beni throughout their journey. The pre-seed funds will allow Beni to grow their team, quickly establish key partnerships, and test distribution channels. These activities will enable Beni to launch, test, and iterate on their beta in Q1 and Q2. Alongside the beta, Beni will more aggressively test various distribution channels in order to identify the best go-to-market strategy for their expected launch in summer 2022…stay tuned!

To date, Beni has received raving reviews from both their 150 testers and recommerce retail partners. Here is what people are saying about Beni:

Users:

“The first time I used Beni felt very magical.”

“This is my new favorite tool — I click on it every time I am looking at a product.”

“I actually go first to your list of Beni-supported sites, and now I only shop on those sites so that I can use Beni.”

Recommerce Retail Partners:

“This is brilliant and much needed and will be a huge help for us. We aren’t super well known yet so this will help us get users.”

“We are excited to partner — the more awareness you can bring to us the better.”

“This is a great acquisition channel! And we will get insights into what shoppers want.”

Chingona Ventures is excited to partner with Beni in an effort to make secondhand shopping simple (mission), accelerate the Circular Economy (vision), and transform the norms of consumption (purpose). Sarah said it best: “redirecting purchases to secondhand has a powerful and clear sustainability impact — to align with the 1.5° pathway, by 2030 we need to live in a world in which one in five garments are traded through circular business models.” Beni will help us get there.