Beni

• Buying resale is now a popular shopping option for millennials and Gen Z consumers.
• As the industry grows, it’s been overrun with sites like ThredUp, The RealReal, eBay, Poshmark.
• Beni, a browser extension, helps shoppers curate resale listings while browsing retail sites online.

Buying resale has become a popular shopping option for millennials and Gen Z consumers looking to add to their wardrobes more sustainably and cheaply.  

In line with that trend, the secondary market is expected to reach $82 million by 2026, according to ThredUp’s 2022 Resale Report, based on a survey conducted by GlobalData.

As the industry continues to grow, it’s been overrun with sites like ThredUp, The RealReal, eBay, Poshmark, and more — all looking to cash in on the booming industry. Startups Trove and Archive have also emerged to help brands like REI and The North Face launch their own branded resale offerings.

Then there’s Beni, a browser extension that CEO and cofounder Sarah Pinner describes as “Honey meets Expedia.” Beni works by aggregating resale listings from over 30 marketplaces in one place for users as they shop on Nordstrom, Nike, Reformation, and about 1,000 other sites.

Beni

Shoppers are required to download the Beni extension on Google Chrome or Safari. Then, they must enable the extension while shopping online to view resale listings.

“So let’s say you find a Patagonia jacket that you really love, we’d show you 20 jackets often that are exactly the same from places like eBay or The RealReal,” Pinner said. “Then you would simply find one of those secondhand items that you like, click on that item in Beni, and it would take you to that resale marketplace.”

Pinner cofounded Beni with CTO Celine Mol. The startup launched out of beta in September 2022 and has amassed 5,000 users so far.

Key to Beni’s business model are the resale platforms it partners with. They range from The RealReal and Grailed to smaller marketplaces like Kidizen and Gear Trade. The latter offers used outdoor equipment and apparel. In return for real-time listings data, Beni markets new resale items to customers as they shop outside of their platforms. 

CEO Sarah Pinner cofounded Beni in 2021.

Beni

“If you think about the unique nature of resale, every item is unique. So let’s say you get somebody to come to The RealReal one day and you don’t have that jacket that they want, and then you get that jacket the next day. You have to kind of reacquire that person to your platform,” Pinner said.  

Beni makes a commission off every purchase made on a partner resale platform. To improve the customer experience, the company last month launched tags that allow Beni users to see what items are authenticated, returnable, or have low fees before clicking a referral link to purchase. The ability to filter results for these specific options was also introduced in late January.

Pinner told Insider that Beni has no direct relationships with the traditional retailers that its users browse, as it is a shopper’s choice to download the extension. But she does want to list more brand-owned resale offerings on Beni. As an example, Patagonia is currently undergoing a pilot with Beni for its Patagonia Worn Wear resale offering.

“A lot of the way we think about the extension is instead of trying to pull these aspirational secondhand shoppers to these marketplaces, we are gonna bring resale to them where they’re already shopping,” she said.

Beni, founded in 2021, last raised a seed round of $4 million in early December. High inflation and fears of a recession, which are plaguing other startups’ efforts to raise capital, actually worked in Beni’s favor last year as consumers often look to buy secondhand when facing economic uncertainty.

“When we raised our pre-seed in 2021, there were still some questions from investors of ‘is recommerce really going to be that big? Do we need a tool like this?'” she said. “And interestingly, this year I didn’t have any of those kinds of questions. The comments were like, ‘Hey, we know recommerce is big, but we want to get involved in what the next phase of recommerce online will look like.'”

• Markazi makes 20 different types of samsas and sells nearly 3,000 of them every weekend
• Over the weekend, the kitchen chops up to 500 pounds of meat, a process that takes around 15 hours
• The best-selling item is the deluxe samsa, a colossal meal that weighs close to 2 kilograms

One of the most popular street foods in Uzbekistan is a pillowy pastry filled with minced meat, spices, onions, and sometimes vegetables. Known as samsas, these pastries come in all shapes and sizes and are always baked in vertical tandoor ovens. The result is a crispy and flaky outside layer that cocoons a steaming-hot meat center. We visited Samsa Markazi, a popular restaurant in Namangan, Uzbekistan, that makes 20 different types of samsas and sells nearly 3,000 of them every weekend.

Ukraine sent mixed messages over the fate of its defence minister on Monday, leaving a key post in its war effort in doubt even as it braces for a new Russian offensive.

A day after announcing that Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov would be replaced, a top ally of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy appeared to row back for now, saying no personnel changes in the defence sector would be made this week.

David Arakhamia, chief of the parliamentary bloc of Zelenskiy’s party, had said Reznikov would be made minister of strategic industries, while the head of military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, would take over the defence ministry.

But Zelenskiy remained silent on the issue, while Reznikov himself said on Sunday he had not been informed of any move, and would reject the strategic industry job if offered it.

The doubt over the minister’s fate comes as Russian forces have been advancing for the first time in half a year in relentless battles in the east. A regional governor said Moscow was pouring reinforcements into eastern Ukraine for a new offensive that could come as soon as next week.

Two senior lawmakers on Monday noted that rules require Ukraine’s defence minister to be a civilian, which would appear to put an obstacle in the way of the immediate appointment of Budanov, a 37-year-old military officer.

Removing Reznikov, who has been warmly received in Western capitals including Paris just last week, would be the highest profile reshuffle in a slew of resignations and sackings in recent weeks, some of which followed corruption scandals.

Ukraine has a decades-long reputation for graft, and Zelenskiy is under pressure to demonstrate the country can be a reliable steward of billions of dollars in Western military and civilian aid. In announcing a personnel purge last month, Zelenskiy pledged to meet Western standards of clean governance.

Reznikov, a lawyer by profession, has not been publicly implicated in any scandals. But one of his deputies and several other officials have left, and prosecutors have announced a probe into allegations that a defence ministry contract would have corruptly overpaid for food for troops.

Arakhamia said Ukraine’s armed forces should not be overseen by politicians during wartime, but by people with a background in defence or security.

“War dictates changes in personnel policy,” he wrote on the Telegram messaging app on Sunday.

Reznikov said on Sunday that any decision on a reshuffle was up to Zelenskiy, but told the Ukrainian Fakty ICTV online media that a planned transfer to a new ministry was news to him.

“If I suddenly received such an offer from the president of Ukraine or the prime minister, I would refuse it, because I do not have the expertise,” Reznikov was cited as saying.

Budanov, identified by Arakhamia as Reznikov’s replacement, is an enigmatic young officer decorated for his role in secret operations, who rapidly rose through the ranks to head up the military’s Main Directorate of Intelligence.

The possible shakeup coincides with Ukrainian fears that Russia is planning a major new offensive this month. Ukraine is planning its own counter-offensive but is waiting on Western supplies of battle tanks and infantry fighting vehicles.

“We are seeing more and more (Russian) reserves being deployed in our direction, we are seeing more equipment being brought in,” Serhiy Haidai, governor of the eastern Luhansk region, said, adding that shelling was no longer round-the-clock.

“They are slowly starting to save, getting ready for a full-scale offensive,” he said on television. “It will most likely take them 10 days to gather reserves. After Feb 15 we can expect (this offensive) at any time.”

Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak, when asked on national television on Sunday night how likely a reshuffle was, said: “Reznikov was extremely efficient in terms of communication with our partners. And this is a very important component in this case.”

As a wartime defence minister, Reznikov, 56, fostered ties with Western defence officials and helped oversee the receipt of billions of dollars of military aid to help Kyiv fend off the Russian invasion.

Podolyak said that Reznikov’s “wonderful” personal relations with allies have helped with the military supplies.

“Negotiations are not just mathematical formulae but also personal relationships. And trust. Unfortunately, today we are losing a measure of trust in us,” Podolyak said.

Reznikov singled out Ukraine’s “de facto” integration into the NATO military alliance as a top priority, even if joining the bloc was not immediately possible.

During his tenure as defence minister, he spoke out strongly about wartime corruption, which he said was akin to “marauding”.

But in recent weeks his ministry became embroiled in a corruption scandal over an army food contract that envisaged paying vastly inflated prices. It caused a public outcry.

The emergence of that scandal was followed by a major reshuffle that saw the exit of an array of regional governors, deputy ministers and other officials.

Reznikov hosted a news conference on Sunday afternoon, in which he said Ukraine expected a possible major Russian offensive this month, but that Kyiv had the resources at hand to hold them at bay.

He also said that his ministry’s anti-corruption department needed to be overhauled and that it had not done what it was supposed to do.

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Corruption investigations and personnel shakeups came in the build-up to a top-level EU visit to Kyiv for a summit on Feb. 3. It is unlikely that this was a mere coincidence.

Did late James Kallstrom of the NY FBI and his protégé Charles McGonigal fix the Election 2016 for Trump for $1.3 ml by orchestrating the Weiner-Abedin laptop – Clinton emails affair?

thenewsandtimes.blogspot.com/2023/02/did-la…

“If the #FBI won’t ask those questions, who will? …when McGonigal come to trial or, perhaps, if he is the string that, when pulled, will unravel all sorts of unimaginable secrets.”

Did the FBI’s Charles McGonigal Help Throw the 2016 Election to Trump? newrepublic.com/article/170328… 

Retired FBI Executive Charged with Concealing $225000 in Cash … – Department of Justice

ADANA/ANKARA, Turkey (Reuters) -More than 600 people were killed and thousands injured on Monday when a major earthquake of magnitude 7.8 struck central Turkey and northwest Syria, collapsing buildings and triggering searches for survivors in the rubble.

The quake, which hit in the early darkness of a winter morning, was also felt in Cyprus and Lebanon.

“We were shaken like a cradle. There were nine of us at home. Two sons of mine are still in the rubble, I’m waiting for them,” said a woman with a broken arm and injuries to her face, speaking in an ambulance near the wreckage of a seven-storey block where she had lived in Diyarbakir in Turkey.

“I have never felt anything like it in the 40 years I’ve lived,” said Erdem, a resident of the Turkish city of Gaziantep, near the quake’s epicentre, who declined to give his surname.

“We were shaken at least three times very strongly.”

Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay said 284 people were killed and 2,323 injured, as authorities scrambled rescue teams and supply aircraft for the affected area, while declaring a “level 4 alarm” that calls for international assistance.

In Syria, already devastated by more than 11 years of civil war, a government health official said more than 237 people had been killed and about 600 injured, most in the provinces of Hama, Aleppo and Latakia, where numerous buildings tumbled down.

In the Syrian rebel-held northwest, rescuers said 147 people had died.

Rescue workers operating in freezing winter weather pulled casualties from rubble across the region.

Reuters TV footage showed dozens of rescue workers in Diyarbakir searching through a mound of debris, all that was left of a big building, hauling off bits of wreckage as they searched for survivors. Occasionally they raised their hands and call for quiet, listening for sounds of life.

In the Haliliye district of Sanliurfa province, footage released by Urfa TV showed what appeared to be a seven-storey block of flats collapsing into a rubble and dust, as passersby ran for safety.

Footage circulated on Twitter showed two neighbouring buildings collapsing one after the other in Syria’s Aleppo, filling the street with billowing dust. Two residents of the city, which has been heavily damaged in the war, said the buildings had fallen in the hours after the quake.

‘LIKE THE APOCALYPSE’

Aleppo health director Ziad Hage Taha told Reuters wounded people were “arriving in waves”.

Syrian state television showed footage of rescue teams searching for survivors in heavy rain and sleet.

In the border town of Azaz – an opposition-held area – a rescue worker carried a toddler from a damaged building. Another group carried a body wrapped in a white sheet as a crane pulled away concrete slabs, a Reuters witness said.

“It was like the apocalypse,” said Abdul Salam al Mahmoud, a Syrian living in the opposition-held town of Atareb, contacted by Reuters.

“There was a huge noise and the building next to ours collapsed when the earthquake happened,” said a 30-year-old in Diyarbakir.

“I rushed outside. There was screaming everywhere. I started pulling rocks away with my hands. We pulled out the injured with friends, but the screaming didn’t stop. Then the teams came.”

Turkey’s president, Tayyip Erdogan, spoke by telephone with the governors of eight affected provinces to gather information on the situation and rescue efforts, his office said.

In Syria, President Bashar al-Assad was holding an emergency cabinet meeting to review the damage and discuss the next steps, his office said.

People in Damascus, and in the Lebanese cities of Beirut and Tripoli, ran into the street and took to their cars to get away from their buildings in fear of collapses, witnesses said.

Footage on broadcaster CNNTurk showed the historic Gaziantep Castle was severely damaged.

The United States was “profoundly concerned” about the quake in Turkey and Syria and was monitoring events closely, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Twitter.

“I have been in touch with Turkish officials to relay that we stand ready to provide any and all needed assistance,” he said.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the magnitude 7.8 quake struck at a depth of 17.9 km. It reported a series of earthquakes, one of 6.7 magnitude.

The region straddles seismic fault lines.

It was Turkey’s most severe quake since 1999, when one of similar magnitude devastated Izmit and the heavily populated eastern Marmara Sea region near Istanbul, killing more than 17,000.

Monday’s tremor lasted about a minute and shattered windows, according to a Reuters witness in Diyarbakir, 350 km (218 miles)to the east, where a security official said at least 17 buildings collapsed.

Authorities said 16 structures collapsed in Sanliurfa and 34 in Osmaniye.

“Our primary job is to carry out the search and rescue work and to do that all our teams are on alert,” Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu told reporters.

Tremors were also felt in the Turkish capital of Ankara, 460 km (286 miles) northwest of the epicentre, and in Cyprus, where police reported no damage.

“The earthquake struck in a region that we feared. There is serious widespread damage,” said Kerem Kinik, chief of the Turkish Red Crescent relief agency, in an appeal for blood donations.

Global shares tumbled on Monday, after a run of upbeat economic data suggested interest rates will have to rise further and stay higher for longer, while a stronger dollar and political turbulence hit risk-linked assets.

Last week’s blockbuster U.S. jobs report sent investors scurrying to load up on dollars to the detriment of emerging market assets and lower-yielding currencies like the yen.

Government bonds, which usually perform well when there is a dash for safe havens, have come under intense pressure, sending 10-year Treasury yields towards one-month highs.

The U.S. military said on Sunday it is searching for remnants of the suspected Chinese surveillance balloon it shot down a day earlier, while Beijing on Monday urged Washington not to escalate matters.

Turkey’s under-pressure lira hit record lows after a powerful earthquake struck Turkey and Syria on Monday, killing over 500 people. The currency sank after data last week showed a worryingly large monthly rise in consumer inflation.

Friday’s U.S. data showed 517,000 jobs were created in January, well above expectations for 185,000, while revisions for 2022 figures led to nonfarm payrolls increasing by 586,000 for the year. Deutsche Bank strategist Jim Reid called the report “astonishing”.

By Monday, the dollar had touched a three-week high of 132.60 against the lower-yielding yen following reports the Japanese government had offered the job of central bank governor to current deputy Masayoshi Amamiya, viewed as less of a monetary policy hawk than his predecessor.

The dollar was last up 0.5% on the day at 131.84, keeping its index steady at 103.11 , having jumped 1.2% on Friday. The euro fell 0.1% to $1.0787 , while sterling was flat at $1.2063.

The MSCI All-World share index (.MIWD00000PUS) was down 0.5% on the day, driven in part by a 0.7% fall in European blue-chips as the STOXX 600 (.STOXX) came under pressure.

The drama over the balloon, which Beijing reiterated was a civilian airship that accidentally strayed into U.S. airspace, has further strained already-tense relations and led Washington to cancel a planned visit to Beijing by Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Chinese equities fell on Monday, while the offshore yuan touched a one-month low against the dollar. It has fallen by almost 2% in the space of three days.

“Undoubtedly, the incident is a negative headline for the market,” said Yuan Yuwei, hedge fund manager at Water Wisdom Asset Management. “The strong U.S. jobs report also cooled the fever of ‘rate pivot’ perceptions, leading to a surging dollar and a declining yuan.”

Deutsche Bank’s Reid said diplomatic tensions between the two countries would be worth watching this week. “We will see if there is any retaliation and/or how strong the rhetoric is.”

S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq futures fell between 0.5-0.7% after January’s payrolls report saw investors price in the risk of more hikes from the Federal Reserve, and less chance of cuts later in the year.

The dollar’s strength also washed through emerging markets.

The lira , bore much of the brunt of the risk-off mood, falling to a record low of 18.85 to the dollar, while the Thai baht posted its biggest one-day fall against the U.S. currency in over 20 years.

“The tragic events with southern part of Turkey being hit by powerful earthquake is source of additional uncertainty ahead of crucial elections that most likely are going to be held in May,” Piotr Matys, senior FX analyst at In Touch Capital Markets, said.

“More importantly, the U.S. payrolls published last Friday indicated that the Fed is likely to remain in a tightening mode for longer then the markets currently anticipate at a time when President Erdogan strongly indicated he expects the Turkish central bank to cut interest rates,” he said.

A host of Fed officials are set to speak this week, led by Chair Jerome Powell on Tuesday, and the tone could be hawkish. European Central Bank and Bank of England policymakers will also be making appearances.

Futures are almost fully priced for a quarter point U.S. rate rise in March, and likely another in May, leaving the peak at 5.0% from 4.9% ahead of the jobs data.

Oil futures rose on Monday, having lost 3% post-payrolls. Brent edged up 0.9% to $80.67 a barrel, while U.S. crude gained 0.6% to trade at $73.86 a barrel.

An energy official told Reuters on Monday there had been no damage to two of Turkey’s key oil pipelines and flows were continuing after the earthquake.

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