Bench.ca Review : Is Legit or Scam? 2024

Bench.ca is the Canadian site of the fashion retailing company Bench. They advertise as a brand that presents “a carefully selected range of multipurpose functional clothing suited to the need of 24 hour life”.

This makes Bench.ca sound like the go-to place to get your everyday fashion products. But the big question is whether this is just a marketing blurb or whether Bench.ca really offers multipurpose functional clothing. If the store does have the product, what about the service? Does the store offer the service we’ll expect of a go-to fashion destination (such as fast delivery, easy and cost effective returns, effective customer service etc)? In the first place, is Bench.ca legit?

This review will examine Bench.ca in order to provide the information that’ll help you answer these questions and more.

Bench.ca review at a glance

• www.bench.ca is the Canadian website of the fashion brand Bench
• Bench.ca is operated by Freemark Apparel Brands (FAB) Inc
• Provides clothing and accessories for women, men and children, with a focus on street inspired styles and activewears
• Ships merchandise to only locations within Canada
• Free standard shipping is offered for orders above $99
• Returns of unwanted items are accepted if made within 30 days from purchase date (for full price items) or within 14 days of purchase date (for sales items)
• Customer support service is available via post, email (info@bench.ca), and telephone (1-866-240-2808)

What is Bench.ca? – Background

Bench.ca is the Canadian website of the British clothing brand Bench. The brand was founded in 1989, and at the time focused on the t-shirt niche. Over the years Bench quickly evolved into a serious clothing brand, and began to source, design and sell cool active-inspired and street-inspired products for women, men, and kids.

Top 5 Most Popular Fashion Stores Online:

1. Rotita.com (Beautiful Dresses)
2. Modlily.com
3. Cupshe.com
4. Bellelily.com

The Montreal based distributor Freemark Apparel Brand (FAB) Inc. brought Bench into Canada, and Bench.ca was born. The website exclusively serves Canadian customers; thus, all prices displayed in the website (and used in this review) are Canadian dollars. If you’ll want to buy from Bench but not resident in Canada, you’ll have to visit the appropriate Bench website. For example: www.benchusa.com for customers from the US, and www.bench.co.uk for customers in the UK.

Bench.ca can be used by persons who are 13 years of age and above. To buy from the site, you’ll have to create an account, which is an easy process that entails simply providing your details in the required fields.

Is Bench.ca legit and Safe?

Yes, Bench.ca is legit and also a safe platform to make purchases online. Your ordered product will be shipped to your destination without a problem. And your credit card details are safe because they use highly secured technoloy and SSL. In addition, there have never been a complaint about Bench stealing customers money or charging their credit cards without the customers consent.

Products

Product Range

The ideal fashion store will hold a variety of fashion products so that you can shop all your fashion needs in one place. First, it saves you the headache of checking and dealing with multiple stores. Secondly, it comes with cost savings; as you may get large order discounts, and you’ll also be able to pay to ship all purchased items as one order instead of paying different shipping charges to ship different items from multiple stores.

Bench.ca does relatively well in this regards. They provide clothing and accessories for men, women and kids. However, they focus on activewears and streetwear; and they provide a variety of apparel types in this niche. The product categories, and the different items you’ll find in each category, are as follows:

Women

• Clothing – Jackets and Coats, Sweats, Knitwear, Tees and Tank Tops, Dresses and Skirts, Leggings and Bottoms, Tops, Denim
• Accessories – Bags and Wallets (Backpacks, Laptop Bags, Pouches, and Shoulder Bag), Hats, Scarves and Gloves, Socks and Underwear, Other accessories

Men

• Clothing – Tees and Tank Tops, Jackets and Coats, Sweats, Knitwear, Bottoms, Tops, Tees
• Accessories – Bags and Wallets, Hats, Scarves and Gloves, Socks and Underwear

Kids

• Girls – Bottoms (leggings, Skirts, Shorts, Pants), Tops (Sweats, Tees, Vest), Dresses, Hoodies, Jackets, and Hats (Beanies)
• Boys – Tops (T- Shirts, Sweats, Knitwear), Hoodies, Jackets, Windbreaker, Joggers, and Hats (Base Ball Caps)

Another product section you’ll find in the men and women category is “Collections”, where you can shop activewears, as well as new arrivals and sales items. That said; if you want street inspired styles and functional 24 hour casual wears, Bench.ca is a strong contender. However, you’ll find Bench.ca lacking if you want a range of formal wears. You’ll also have to visit another store for your beauty products.

Inventory Size

While a variety of products is important, it’ll mean nothing if what is available is only one of the different product types. Thus, the ideal store should hold a sizeable inventory of the different product types they provide. That way, you’ll have a selection to choose from when shopping; and you’ll be more likely to find pieces that you like.

However, Bench.ca does not particularly do well in this regards.  At the time of writing this review, we found the number of items in each product section to be relatively very low. For example, in the women category: the Dresses and Skirt section had only 2 items; the Leggings and Bottoms section had only 13 items; the sweatshirts section had 30 items; and even the Tees and Tank Tops section had only 31 items. The men’s category was no different. Men’s activewear collections had only 2 items; the Coats and Jackets section had only 36 items; while the sweats section had 47 items. In the kids’ category, the entire collection in the girls section consisted of only 42 items; while the entire collection in the boys section was even worse off with only 27 items.

In the fashion retailing business, it is easy to find shops with hundreds or even thousands of different items in particular product sections. That said; the stock of Bench.ca (which is less than 50 in every product section) comes out as small. The consequence is that when shopping in Bench.ca it is very likely that you’ll not find items that you like. For example, none of the two dresses featured might appeal to you.

Prices, Promotions and Related Policies

Prices

The majority of customers will want fashion stores that feature prices that are reasonable. In this regard, we’ll look at the prices in Bench.ca and also how it compares with prices in competing stores.

When that is done, Bench.ca does not come out as a destination for low price merchandise. However, while the store’s prices are a little on the high side, it is not by any means an expensive high price store. 

For example, at the time of writing this review, women’s leggings cost $49 – $129 at full price, but knocked down by promo coupons to $27.99 – $66.75. The dresses listed cost $89.99 – $119 at full price, but knocked down by coupons to $48.99 – $62.99. Women’s sweats cost $79 – $129 at full price; and even Tees and Tank Tops were listed at $35 – $55 at full price, and only brought down to $21.75 – $41.25 by the coupons. The men’s category was similarly priced. Jackets and Coats went for $99 – $229 at full price and discounted to $69.99 – $149.25; while Sweats went for $69 – $129 at full price, and discounted to $45.49 – $89.25.

To put this in perspective, the stores generally regarded as low and affordable will feature a lot of prices below $50, and the expensive stores will have items well above $100, and even in four figures. Thus, Bench.ca falls somewhere in the middle; that is, it is a little overpriced, but still somewhat affordable.

Promotions

Customers are attracted to promotions as ants are to sugar. In fact, promotions are actually the sugar that sweetens any deal; as they allow customers to obtain listed item for less than the full price. Thus, the ideal online fashion store should offer a lot of promotional offers.

Bench.ca does very well in this regard. Like every store that is generous with promotions, you’ll be greeted with different promotional offers as you get to the landing page of their website. One of the first we found was a “wheel of fortune” styled offer. You’ll have to enter your e-mail address and click “spin”; then watch what perk on the wheel the pointer will indicate that you’ll be rewarded with. The wheel had sections with perks such as: Free spinning, $25 off (orders $100), 15% off, Gift with Purchase ($59).

Also, as we went through the website, there were various pop-ups, all with a time-specific 10% off promise. There were also different promotional coupons that significantly slashed prices; some bringing down prices by as much as 52%.

Ordering and Payment

The ideal online fashion store should offer a smooth ordering process. This starts with a functional and intuitive website. The Bench.ca website ticks the box in this regards. Navigating through the site to select an item from the product sections is fairly easy. Alternatively, if you have a particular product in mind, using the search button will bring out products close to your search. Selecting a particular item will take you to the item’s details page; and you can proceed to “Add to Shopping Cart”.  You can click on the cart icon at any time to view your cart, and proceed to checkout.

Interestingly, after an order is placed, Bench.ca is able to effect any desired change or modification if the store is contacted within the same business day. This is a good one considering that sometimes, customers want to modify an order immediately after its placement; and many fashion stores in the market do not allow order changing or modifying an order after it is placed.

When it comes to paying for the item, you’ll want that the store support a wide range of payment options so that finding one to use will not be difficult. In this regards, Bench.ca does not tear down the roof with options, but they do support the popular payment options. You can pay for your Bench.ca orders using Visa, Master Card, PayPal and Visa Debit. With these options, making payment should not be an issue.

Shipping

After placing an order in Bench.ca, the item will be shipped to the location where you’ll take possession of it. Thus, shipping is an important consideration when considering online purchases. The most important shipping considerations are: shipping destinations, shipping times, and shipping costs.

Shipping Destinations

Except a store ships merchandise to your territory, receiving delivery of your orders will be difficult. Thus, one of the first things to check in a store you’re considering is the locations that the store ships to. In this regards, we’ll want a store that ships to many worldwide locations, so that customers from different locations can use it for their purchases.

The American company Bench actually ships merchandise to worldwide locations. However, because Bench.ca is the Canadian website of the fashion company, every item purchased from the Bench.ca store will ship to only locations within Canada.

Shipping Times

You don’t want an online store that will take forever to deliver your orders. Thus, the ideal online fashion store will offer quick delivery. Delivery times consist of order processing time, and package shipping times; and stores with fast delivery will deliver on both counts.

In this regard, Bench.ca offers two different delivery options – Standard delivery and Express delivery. Order processing takes 1 – 3 business days for Standard orders, but it takes 1 business day for Express orders. After the orders are processed, they are dispatched, and shipment times starts counting. Standard orders ships within 3 – 6 business days, while Express orders ships within 1 – 3 business days.

Bench.ca also offers in-store pick up. With this offer, you can choose that your order be delivered to a Bench retail outlet close to you, and you can go there to pick up the package. Shipment to Bench store takes 4 – 9 business days.

A look at the delivery times of Bench.ca shows that the company will not be winning the delivery sprints. For example, you should expect delivery of Bench.ca standard orders in 4 – 9 business days (adding order processing and shipment times). If you’ve seen reviews of other fashion stores, you’ll find that there are stores that deliver standard orders in less time. It also does not help that Bench.ca does not have expedited delivery options such as Same Day delivery or Next Day delivery.

Shipping Costs

The cost of acquiring anything online is more than just the purchase price. This is because the total spend on any item consists of the cost of the item and the cost of moving it to the shipping address. Thus, high shipping costs can easily make the item expensive to acquire. As a result, the ideal online fashion store will feature shipping costs that are as low as possible.

Bench.ca does relatively well in this regard. Their Standard delivery cost $9.95, while their Express delivery cost $24.90. You’ll find that the shipping cost of Bench.ca is a little on the high side (relatively). However, it’s good that flat rates are offered, so what you pay for shipping will not increase with an increase in your order size or weight. Also, the lowest possible shipping cost that customers can get is zero, which is free shipping. Thankfully, Bench.ca also offers free shipping.

The first free shipping offer is the “Ship to Bench Store” service. If you’ll be picking up your online order from a Bench store, Bench.ca will ship the order to the store free of charge.

The second free shipping offer will move your order to your door free of charge. However, the delivery option will be Standard delivery, and it comes with minimum order requirement. To get free Standard delivery, your Bench.ca order must be over $99. It’s typical of fashion retailers to attach minimum order requirements to free shipping offers. However, while the $99+ qualifying mark of Bench.ca is relatively fine, you’ll find stores that will ship free for $50+ orders.

Returns

It’s possible that after receiving delivery of your order, you’ll find that the item delivered is not what you ordered, or is defective. It’s also possible to have ordered the wrong size, and the item happens not to fit. And it’s possible not to like how the item looks in real life. In all cases, you’ll have in your possession an item that you’ll rather return to the retailer.

Thus, the ideal online store should allow customers to return (back to the store) items that they are not totally satisfied with. Like any serious online fashion store, Bench.ca allows returns. What follows is a review of their return policy.

Return Process

You won’t want to have unwanted items in your hand and be deterred from returning them to the retailer because of a cumbersome return process. Thus, the ideal store should feature an easy return process.

The return process of Bench.ca is fairly easy. First, you’ll have to process a return authorization by simply sending Bench.ca an email (via info@bench.ca). In the mail, you’ll state your intention to return the item(s), as well as the reason for returning the particular item(s). If the company approves the return, they will respond by issuing you a Return Authorization Number (RAN). You’ll then proceed to package the items appropriately, write the RAN on the original invoice you received, and include it in the return package.