Image-Based Search Engines to Determine Future Success of E-Commerce Sites

Image-based search technology is one of the biggest technology trends in ecommerce that is bound to change the course of how shopping will be done in the near future. Though, the technology was slow in coming to terms in the market, with new players finding a foothold in the technology and also on the needs of the market, ecommerce websites and apps will soon see an influx of visual search features soon.

Why should ecommerce site owners care about visual search?

-                   -       Huge advantage over all types of keyword-based searches

Visual search is able to “read” images directly without you having to identify the name of the visual. It can identify color, shape, size and all types of proportions for conjuring up similar matches. Also, the technology has grown advanced enough to recognize text to identify brand names. Results in a keyword based searches are restricted to the searcher’s ability to name and describe an item.

With keyword search, keywords need to be part of the query and product description too. Also there should be some keywords as part of the page’s metadata. Product copies with proper metadata will redirect the queries to the page. But this approach defeats the web adage ‘don’t make users think.’ Visual searches rely on the pictures themselves which are literally worth a thousand keywords in this context. Visual search with photos can lead to better and more accurate results.

Visual search can dramatically improve keyword search too. Also it gives a stronger context to the product or image.

-                    -       Support spearfishing

Spearfishing is a great idea to locate what one wants quickly by browsing different categories. Visual inputs will deliver better context here along with an effective set of search results. Some ecommerce sites even allow customers to upload photos or even link a relevant URL  to scour through the site’s vast array of similar products.

Tilly’s mobile app for example, takes customers to online product pages based on pictures clicked in its print catalog. Many other retailers are leveraging spearfishing strategies with visual search capabilities.

-                  -      Creative merchandising

Affiliate-based shopping sites help users to explore catalogs and refine results by having a slider to denote the color or shape that they prefer. These creative merchandising capabilities also go a long way in determining the success of the site.

Online retailers can populate merchandising features based on shapes or patterns too. Retailers that possess visual search capabilities on their portals can provide them to other centres as part of a shopping API strategy. Affiliate developers can access search similarity APIs so that products can be remixed into new apps and render new experiences.

-                 -       Capturing show roomers

Amazon’s Flow app for example can flinch sales from physical retailers with the help of their show rooming strategy. Retailers that offers visual search through mobile apps can even combat show rooming and benefit from the show rooming efforts of other retail shops.

-                 -       With visual search capabilities, sites can snap anything from the real world.

Image-based searches do not need to be in the physical or digital store for products access. One can choose a product anywhere now, and with the ‘snap to buy’ functionality, anything you see can be bought.

-                 -       Extends benefits other than fashion to consumer goods

Although fashion has a dominant market, home décor, consumer goods and makeup products can also be glorified with visual searches. The contextual search outside of purchases is useful here. One can add photos to the mobile registry to generate a mobile coupon or even click an image of jeans to find a coupon from a popular jeans brand.

The Image-Based World of Shopping

Amazon’s Flow app has been criticized for failure to handle some products but not all image recognition apps and software have problems. eInfochips EzVisual Search for example, is an effective content-based image retrieval engine (CBIR) that can identify colours, shapes, sizes and attributes easily. One can attribute the success of image-based searches with reduced manual enquiries to customer center, and the elevation of brand value for the retail site. One can expect that with the proliferation of image-based search features in retail sites, the world will soon be a showroom of products and things that we desire and can buy at our own leisure.