The rise of the concept of user experience (UX) has shaken both industries and customers alike, as it posited the buyer’s journey as the prime mover of revenue generation. In essence, this means that the entirety of efforts aimed at better engaging customers can be summarized as helping them gain access to what they want in the fastest and most accurate manner possible. If this was not enough of a task in itself, the UX demanded by a new breed of empowered consumers now includes helping them identify their hidden shopping desires, which even they are sometimes unaware of. This necessitated re-inventing the established design tenets, as the UX/UI had to interface with the customer’s brain and offer them personalization paired with convenience. All things considered, this is why customer experience is the new retail battlefield. Thankfully, it is these core principles that we based our visual search platform on, taking into account the latest in image recognition and artificial technologies. If you value the time and effort you invest in staying ahead of the curve and competition, take a short break to learn how this innovative approach to UX/UI design can skyrocket your revenues.
Total Shopping Experience with Product Recommendations
Our solution reflects the understanding that image recognition technology plays a key role in creating a visual offer that is relevant, informative and free from clutter. The latter is particularly important in coming up with intuitive UI design, knowing that only 30% of your e-customers set out on their buyer’s journey with a clear-cut vision of what product they actually want. Thus, establishing effective visual communication means introducing them to an entire assortment of your products instead of counting on their random clicks on items presented on product pages.
This is why we offer you to empower your website with our search technology, which is based on allowing shoppers to hover over a product pictured in a photo. This action is immediately followed by the automatic presentation of similar items on sale to your customer. Thus, the buyer gets an opportunity to get holistic insight into your offer by being presented with recommendations of products that are similar in color, design, fabric or price range. These suggestions are fully based on deep learning and AI technologies that allow for recognition of pieces of clothing based on similar parameters, which promises hugely improved UX when it comes to shopping online. In addition, this technology is perfectly in line with studies showing that buyers prefer receiving visual feedback when interacting with an object by hovering over it.
In addition, this technology prevents annoyances that visitors are sometimes faced with while looking for particular products, such as items being out of stock or deficient with particular sizes. With the help of our visual search engine, consumers are instantly offered the best alternatives to the currently missing items, which guarantees higher conversion rates and sale revenues. Once again, this is done in a simple manner i.e. by hovering their mouse over such items, after which the customers are offered similar products that they can browse and ultimately find something they would like.
This is how it works in case of Fashion retailer Intu.co.uk:
Syte’s technology recognizes customer’s preferences in addition to images, with the AI which visualizes user intent in form of smart product recommendations [Credit: Screenshot]
As can be seen above, the model in question is wearing a black jumper dress. The AI recognized the piece on the photograph, making it possible for the visitors to hover over the image and be presented with attractive suggestions based on similar items.
Going Beyond User Intent
Recognizing the image recognition technology as the contemporary language of retail which substituted written words, our proprietary technology is designed around the customer’s desire to use objects from their physical surroundings to automatize search for similar or identical products online. Users can upload their photos from their cameras/phones or social media, while the engine instantly gives them results based on where they can actually shop for the desired look.
In practice, this means that a customer may originally come to your site looking for an evening dress which forms the focus of their “user intent”. Yet, the system manages to expand on this by offering them to buy stylistically matching shoes or purse, all within the same shopping session. In this manner, you are able to improve findability and, more importantly, the buyability of products which are not strictly in line with the customer’s original user intent.
This is exactly what the fashion retailer Fashion Forward expected from our proprietary technology in terms of boosting sales and making the shopper’s journey more intuitive.
As it can be seen here, the model in question is wearing trousers and we can imagine that they were of primary interest for the shopper. However, the AI has also recognized the shoes on the photograph when the visitors hover over the appropriate segment of the image, presenting them with suggestions on similar items that can be paired with the original item they look for.
There is no reason why the customers shopping for trousers should not be offered visually compatible shoes on the same occasion [Credit: Screenshot]
Consequently, using visual search capabilities for expansion offers clear benefits for e-retailers in terms of their long-term business prospects. According to a study, visitors who used visual search view 37% more products on average, spend 36% more time on the retailer’s website and account for 68% more return visits. Finally, their average order value is 11% higher compared to the shoppers who are not offered a visual search option, and these enlarged shopping baskets are easily translated into more stable sources of revenue for your business.
Shopping for the Look with Gigi
Faced with the fact that almost two billion images are shared on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and other platforms on daily basis, modern retailers realize that their interaction with the customers of today is based around providing them with intuitive and hands-on visual experience of interacting with the brand. For this purpose, we introduced a VisualBot called Syte Inspire, which can be easily integrated with retailer’s applications, Facebook Messenger or e-commerce websites.
In practice, it allows users to take a photo of an outfit and send it via social media to Syte Inspire, which acts the personal fashion assistant. These images can be user-generated, stored on your smartphone, or uploaded from Instagram, online fashion resources or the influencers’ websites. The bot uses AI-powered image recognition technology to communicate with the customers and offer them help in coming up with the same or stylistically similar outfit according to their desired price range. In this manner, your retail site will be transformed into a popular abode of “must-have” shopping items for all consumer categories, boosting your earnings in the long run. That way, consumers have the power to take their inspiration, while scrolling the web or on their favorite social sites such as Instagram, Snapchat or Pinterest, and turn it into actionable purchases.
Wrap-up
Combining the newest features of AI and visual search technologies has silently reshaped all industries which involve a more direct engagement with the customers. Retailers, in particular, emerged as the vanguard in promotion of these technologies, and many of them are now choosing to work with our visual search solution, making it possible for them to offer intuitive UX and UI experience to their customers in return for significantly boosted revenues.