Virtual try-on built in Canada, for Canadian brands

Who is Spequlo?

Spequlo was founded in Ottawa out of Carleton University's innovation hub and is based in Toronto. The team builds one product: a widget that shows a shopper your garment on their own body and tells them which size to buy. It is on the Shopify App Store and in the App Store as a consumer app.

What does the widget do?

A shopper taps the button on your product page, uploads one photo or picks a preset model, and sees the garment on themselves in seconds. Two more guided photos give a size recommendation from their measurements, matched to your chart. You see the funnel through to the order, per product and per category.

Why do fit returns cost Canadian brands more?

Distance, first. A studio in Montreal ships to customers in Vancouver, Calgary and Halifax, and every return travels the same distance back. Outerwear makes it worse: a parka is bulky to ship once and bulkier to ship twice. For a lean team, each size exchange is also someone's afternoon spent on a label, a refund and a restock.

Selling to the United States got harder too. On August 29, 2025, the US suspended its US$800 duty-free de minimis threshold for every country, Canada included, so orders to American customers now clear customs and are assessed duty (Export Development Canada). A size exchange on a US order now means two border crossings for one sale. Getting the size right before checkout is worth more to a Canadian brand than it has ever been.

How does Spequlo handle Canadian size charts?

Canadian brands publish size charts every way there is: centimetres, inches, or both side by side, usually against US letter sizes, sometimes as body measurements and sometimes as flat garment measurements. Spequlo reads the chart in whatever form it is published, converts it to centimetres, and works out whether the numbers describe the body or the garment before it matches a shopper to a size. That last step matters: a flat chest measurement is half the circumference, and reading it as a body measurement gets the size badly wrong.

Charts are picked up from your product pages and Shopify data. If one only exists as an image or a PDF, upload it once and it is matched to the right products.

Does it work for outerwear and knitwear?

Those are the categories Canadian brands are known for, and the ones where a flat product photo says the least. The try-on shows the garment on the shopper's own proportions: how long a parka falls on them, how a wool coat sits at the shoulder, how a chunky knit drops. It works from the product images and description already on your page, so there are no 3D models to build and no extra photo shoot. Spequlo has a dedicated page on knitwear if that is your category.

Which Canadian brands use it?

Belacaro, a knitwear brand, and Wade, a menswear brand, run Spequlo on their product pages. Both are independent Canadian labels on Shopify, which is the profile the product is tuned for.

Why does a Canadian vendor matter?

Support in your hours, a team that understands Canadian sizing conventions and the cross-border returns problem, and a company whose reference customers you can call. Canadian fashion brands have so far had to buy try-on from vendors in Europe or the US who have never sold a parka.

It also means the people who built the product are the people you talk to. Onboarding is a call in Eastern time with the team that wrote the code, not a ticket in another time zone's queue.

What should you ask any virtual try-on vendor?

Five questions sort the useful tools from the demos. Does it work from the product photos you already have, or does it need 3D models or a new shoot? Does it tell the shopper which size to buy, or only show a picture? Does it read your size charts as you publish them, including images and PDFs? Can you see try-ons, add-to-carts and orders per product, so you know where it pays for itself? And what happens to shopper photos: where are they kept, who can see them, and can they be deleted?

Spequlo's answers: your existing photos; yes, it recommends a size; yes, charts are read as published; yes, the dashboard runs through to the order; and photos are stored privately and are deleted on request. Ask every vendor you are considering the same five, including us.

Spequlo for Canadian brands, in practice

Install from the Shopify App Store, enable the theme block, and you are live; brands on other platforms add one script tag. Before you talk to anyone, try the shopper side on the demo store at spequlo.com/try with garments like yours. Then book a demo and you will be talking to the people who built it, in Eastern time.

Questions, answered

Is Spequlo a Canadian company?

Yes. Spequlo Technologies Inc. is based in Toronto, Ontario, and was founded at Carleton University in Ottawa.

Does it read size charts in centimetres?

Yes. Charts in centimetres, inches or both work as published; Spequlo converts everything to centimetres before matching a shopper to a size.

Does it work outside Shopify?

Yes, via a script tag. Shopify is the fastest path because the app installs as a theme block.

Do shoppers need an app or an account?

No. The try-on opens in an overlay on your product page, so the shopper never leaves the product they were about to buy.

How long does setup take?

For a Shopify store, an afternoon: install the app, enable the theme block, and the try-on button appears on product pages. Size charts are matched to products automatically. Other platforms use a script tag.

What happens to shopper photos?

Photos are stored privately and are deleted on request. Brands see aggregate analytics, not a shopper's photos.

Can I see it working before I talk to anyone?

Yes. Use “Try it as a shopper” on this page to open a live, category-matched demo with the real widget on real product pages.