As resale fashion booms — with the global market now worth over $210 billion — Beni Lens offers shoppers a fast, image-based way to transform screenshots and street-style inspo into real secondhand finds.
Most shoppers today build their wardrobes long before they ever hit “add to cart.” A celebrity airport look saved to a Pinterest board, a jacket spotted on the subway, a screenshot of a perfect outfit pulled from Instagram — these small moments become a kind of digital wish list. The challenge, of course, is finding those pieces in real life, especially when they are vintage, sold out, or priced far above what feels reasonable.
Beni, the AI resale search engine, believes it can close that gap. Its newest feature, Beni Lens, is designed for the shopper who sees something once and wants a way to capture the moment before it disappears. Instead of scrolling through endless resale listings or guessing keywords, the tool lets users upload a photo or snap something on the go and receive secondhand matches in seconds.
A visual shortcut to the secondhand market
Beni Lens is built on patent-pending technology created specifically for resale, rather than retrofitted from traditional shopping engines. The system pulls live listings from major secondhand platforms such as Poshmark, ThredUp, The RealReal, eBay, Depop, and others. Once an image is uploaded, Beni filters results based on a user’s chosen size, price range, preferred brands, and even condition — a level of personalization that can be difficult to replicate when browsing marketplaces one by one.
The feature has already caught the attention of shoppers who rely on images to navigate style. “Before Beni, recommending secondhand pieces was frustrating because the link would die once an item sold,” Robyn Davies, Beni user and sustainable fashion stylist in New York, said in a statement. “Now I can upload a photo of something I like and my newsletter subscribers can find the same or similar item in their size and budget. It’s helping demystify secondhand shopping by mimicking people’s current consumption habits, just with a much more sustainable —and I’d argue more stylish — option.”
Beni Lens is available through the Chrome extension for desktop browsing and inside the brand’s iOS app for on-the-go searches. That flexibility means a shopper can be inspired anywhere — walking past a great coat, scrolling TikTok, or assembling a winter wardrobe from mood boards — and immediately see what is available secondhand.
A tool for the way people shop now
Secondhand fashion isn’t fringe anymore. The resale market is experiencing a surge so powerful it’s reshaping how people shop. In 2024, the U.S. secondhand apparel market grew 14 percent — its biggest jump since 2021 — expanding five times faster than the broader retail clothing market.
Experts estimate the global secondhand fashion market reached $210.3 billion in 2025, and it’s expected to nearly triple to $581.3 billion by 2035. In the U.S., as of 2024, more than half of shoppers — 58 percent — reported buying secondhand apparel. Among younger generations, especially Gen Z, interest is even higher: about 83 percent have either purchased secondhand clothing or said they are open to doing so.
Online resale is fueling much of that growth. Sales in online resale platforms rose 23 percent in 2024, and projections suggest online resale in the U.S. could reach $40 billion by 2029.
Beni arrives at a moment when digital tools for smarter, more sustainable shopping are rapidly gaining traction. Apps like the Hailey Bieber-backed Phia — the AI assistant founded by Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni — have helped normalize the idea that shoppers should have instant clarity on value before they buy. Phia scans more than 250 million secondhand listings and compares prices across 40,000 retailers to show whether an item is fairly priced or available for less on the resale market.
That kind of behind-the-scenes intelligence has trained shoppers to expect transparency, speed, and savings. Beni builds on that shift by meeting the inspiration moment itself: instead of waiting until someone is already browsing a product page, Beni Lens starts with the image — the screenshot, the street-style snap, the Pinterest save — and turns it into secondhand options in seconds.
Beni’s founders describe the tool as a response to a broader shift in how fashion is discovered. “Shopping today is overwhelming and inspiration feels fleeting,” said Kate Sanner, Co-Founder and CEO of Beni. “People want convenience, affordability, and style. Resale delivers the best value for your money and now visual search makes it irresistibly easy to access.”
For Celine Lightfoot, Co-Founder and CTO, Beni Lens reflects how style inspiration actually happens. “Shoppers discover fashion through images — not product pages and search bars,” she said. “We built Beni Lens to meet them where inspiration sparks and help them get the style they want at a price they can afford.”
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