BeauCoo, the Calgary, Canada-based startup that wants to make it easier for women to discover new styles, brands and stores and shop for clothes online by matching them with other women who have a similar body type, just launched its Android app. The service started out as an iPhone app and recently expanded to the web.
The basic idea behind BeauCoo is that “women are naturally drawn to one another in their search for fashion advice and styles, despite the fact that very few women are truly alike in shape or size.” If finding the right fit is hard in a regular store, it’s obviously even harder online, so if BeauCoo can help shoppers connect with others who share their body type, brands could potentially tap into this and use it to drive sales and reduce returns.
The service uses Facebook logins to ensure that only women can sign up in order to ensure that they can feel comfortable about sharing photos of the clothes they try on and talking about their body types.
As BeauCoo co-founders Christian and Victoria MacLean told me earlier this week, the site is currently growing at an average of about 200 percent a month since launch. though they weren’t quite ready to announce any concrete user numbers yet. On the web, the average user now spends about five minutes per session on the site (mobile sessions tend to be shorter).
The team of co-founders, which also includes Rick Cotter and Cory Smith, puts a strong emphasis on what they call ‘body positivity.'”
“Women need to actively see other women their size looking beautiful,” explains Victoria MacLean. “BeauCoo is all about women inspiring other women. To be [body positive] is to believe in yourself and love your body – no matter the size.”
For the Android launch, the MacLeans told me, the team decided to leave out a few underused features. BeauCoo’s users, for example, didn’t really want to share their photos outside of the app on Facebook and other social networks, so the Android app doesn’t have this functionality.
The Android app is now available in the Google Play store.