What is the difference between Visual Search and Image Search?

Jessica was looking for new shoes online with something on her mind. She had seen girls her age using these white sneakers with funny laces and had no idea how to search for them or where to find them.

She typed exactly what she could think of that described the shoes.

Nothing popped up.

If she had a picture of the shoes, Google Lens could’ve helped her match the pictures with a relevant result. The question relies on whether she’s searching for only a product or a whole new style.

Image search consists of using your camera or an image to search and identify products, places, and even people. Google has championed this term using Google Lens, and the world loves it!

Every month, 12 billion visual “googles” are done with images. Machine learning pairs your image with an existing one, just another way of answering a question.

But what happens when you don’t have a picture of the item you want to buy (98% of the time)?

How is visual search different?

In visual search, all the navigation is done without external pictures or words.

Visual search helps users achieve and exceed their expectations in ways words can hardly describe. Major tech companies like Amazon, Google, and Pinterest have already spent years perfecting their proprietary systems.

Benefits of visual search for retailers

This 2023’s big reveal has been TikTok's new visual search platform and everyone else should be scared about this since users spend around 56 minutes a day scrolling through this platform.

TikTok has found the secret sauce of online shopping: making it a search for inspiration, not only answers.

Now imagine if your product feed would start surfacing items to your shoppers as TikTok does with videos.

Wordless Search is the future

By leveraging an AI-powered search, the Wordless Search tool allows users to have better shopping experiences by finding products without typing a word on any e-commerce site.

This is how it works:

Wordless search makes it possible to find products even if you don't know how to describe them in words, making the shopping experience as delightful and addictive as browsing Pinterest or TikTok.

99 out of 100 website visitors don’t see your products

Many e-commerce sites have the products people seek, yet the main issue is that customers don’t even get to see them.

Percentil was facing this issue. The website had too many options, and regardless of how good those options were, customers faced the paradox of choice - too many options that got straight-up ignored by the website visitors.  

After implementing Miros' Wordless Search, PERCENTIL improved their buyer's journey exceptionally, leading to a significant GMV uplift of +7% after only a month of full deployment. They also witnessed a +4% uplift for AOV and +7% for customer retention.

AI search helped Percentil perform better with their customers by “reading” their minds and giving a different experience than answering a question.

So, what’s the main difference anyway?

How can I start using AI for my e-commerce website?

Miros AI is an easy-to-use, proprietary technology at the service of your customers. In just 6 to 8 engineering hours, you can have your online store showing your customers exactly what they’re thinking of from the moment your site loads up.