Glossary

Visual Product Search

In one line: Visual product search lets a shopper upload a photo — an outfit, a piece of furniture, a gadget — and AI surfaces the closest matches in your catalogue, turning inspiration into orders.

What it does

Instead of relying on a customer guessing the right keywords, visual search uses computer vision to match an image against your product catalogue by shape, colour, pattern, and style. The shopper points at what they want; the AI finds the nearest things you actually stock.

Why it matters

Inspiration usually strikes somewhere other than your search bar — a photo on Instagram, a friend’s outfit, a screenshot. Visual search closes the gap between “I want something like that” and “here’s one you can buy now,” capturing intent that a text search box would lose.

What to watch for

Match quality depends on good product imagery and metadata. If your catalogue photos are inconsistent or poorly tagged, the matches suffer. It works best for visually-driven categories like clothing, eyewear, and homeware.

Related terms

Computer Vision, Virtual Try-On, Recommendation Engine