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E-commerce: is that time to invest in visual search?

Why do people shop online? Because it is easier to compare prices online (and so find a good bargain), search for information, convenient and quicker. That’s why search engine and comparators are so popular. Considering that - it is always with surprise that I notice how little e-tailers are investing in search technologies. Try to search for a blue shirt size 15 on a website and it is a safe bet to say that most results won’t meet your expectations. Most e-tailers will blame their search engine for this but it is likely that they do not even have people looking after their search engine on a daily basis. That’s a shame as search is probably the most used feature on a website therefore a good search engine is a quick way to stand out from the crowd! How? The first thing to do is obviously to get the basics right in indexing your attributes and make sure they are normalised, the second thing will be to start playing with the relevancy algorithm and look after your search reports (I won’t detail that here) and the third one will be to innovate. How? Visual search!

 
What is a visual search? I believe that you can split visual search into three categories:
  1. Searching for an image through keyword - a la Google
  2. Searching through keyword but displaying the results more visually
  3. Searching through visual components to find what you are looking for.
The first one is now pretty basic and most of us do that quite often. The second is starting to be interesting as most websites are still failing on this but a few good examples are now available. Look at Search Me for example (http://www.searchme.com/), they had this clever idea of presenting results in a fashion where you could see the actual page before selecting the results you want to see. So I can then quickly scan the results and select the one I am interested in. A bit better than just displaying the first few lines of a web page or a thumbnail of a product…

Search

I am not quite sure that the Search Me model can be easily replicated for an e-commerce website though, but let’s now have a look at Oskope (http://www.oskope.com/). They let you choose how you want to display the results of your search so it is a bit more convenient for me to navigate through them. Analysing the results is a bit easier as you can see on this graph view, the experience is no longer flat but the best is still to come!
What is better then? Well actually I believe the capability to search with visual components as an input has a great future. Why? Because describing something is always an issue. Most of the words are inaccurate and translation is quite difficult - try to explain the difference between purple and lilac for example. So if I can just give a picture of something I like as an input there is a good chance that the results will suit me better (assumption being that the results are relevant). It is easier said than done, but I have noticed a few recent good things. Like.com (http://www.like.com/) have been one the first to offer a visual search feature where you can select a visual detail of a product that you like and try to find matching ones based on colour and/or shape. Etsy (http://www.etsy.com/) have created a really inspirational browsing experience in enabling a search where you can choose a colour through an actual rainbow. A bit sexier than searching with a keyword!



But I think the real thing is still to be invented. Imagine a world where you could browse the internet, see a product that you like, right-click on the image, launch the search and then see a search results page where you could compare prices across the internet with no language barrier. It will be pretty cool and useful – I guess it could also be quite depressing for people like me based in the UK where almost everything is more expensive than anywhere else! It could sound a bit futuristic, but I think we are not so far away from it. I tested this afternoon the TinEye browser plugin (http://tineye.com/) for the first time and I have been quite impressed. Basically I am now able to search the entire internet through a right-click on an image. So who will be the first to build a comparative engine based on this?

Posted by Guillaume Vingtier on August 6, 2008 08:37 PM |

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Comments

Visual search sounds great! If there is any way to tieback the benefits of visual search to higher conversion rates and basket size, the payback would be easily justified. With the rich UI we need to recognize the need for high speed broadband connectivity to deliver that experience.

Posted by: ashish jandial | August 20, 2008 01:46 PM

The 'refine by visual detail' on Like.com is a great way of encouraging cross sell especially in apparel. I think this could be further used to refine by pattern or material.
The concept of a visual search is really good, perhaps the next step is taking a capture from a video source and using that to search the web?

Posted by: Jonathan Nobbs | August 21, 2008 01:48 PM

Interesting blog! Do you think this will have an impact on how online retailers merchandise their products?

Posted by: RYAN THOMAS HEWITT | August 22, 2008 09:55 AM

The main business benefits I see for visual search are tied to traffic acquisition and brand perception. Like.com has recently reached the monthly 5 million unique visitors mark so it seems that visual search catches an interest from potential customers.

Searching inside video content is something that we have started to see, but it is still considered a bit futuristic so searching with video inputs is probably far down the line.

Visual merchandising is something that is taking off, I will post something on this shortly.

Posted by: Guillaume Vingtier | August 22, 2008 11:38 AM

I agree that searching within video content is still 'futuristic', but it still has great potential within retail. Imagine if a product demo video is being displayed, the opportunity for cross is immense!

Posted by: Jonathan Nobbs | August 22, 2008 01:55 PM

Great post! The potential of visual search is huge..considering a picture speaks a thousand words :)

Posted by: Sita Bhatt | August 26, 2008 08:53 AM

It is just a matter of time that we see visual search sitting next to the keyword search box. Infact, new version of Internet explorer (IE 8.0, still in beta) allow various visual search providers to be embedded in the browser and there are already beta visual search providers for Amazon and ebay. See

http://www.ieaddons.com/en/searchproviders/

Also, with people like vunow ( http://www.vunow.com ) trying to bring online videos onto TV, the need for visual search will be paramount.

To me,it is a natural evolution. Next thing could be to search, based on other senses i.e. how would it be if i can search something based on touch, smell or hear. We might reach there by 2050 when semantic web takes on the world :-)

However, at this moment, in retail context, i think it will work in cases where there are large assortments to search on. i.e. amazon, ebay etc or a speciality retailer such as IKEA. The last thing you want is to drive away a customer by not showing the merchandise you have. Remember that, searching on color, shape and texture tends to return most relevant and hence less search results!

Posted by: Harish Kashyap | September 2, 2008 11:09 AM

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