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Etsy launches visual product search - voila! Marketing and digital

2022-11-06T14:43:00.424Z


The long-standing ecommerce platform for arts and crafts enthusiasts is launching visual search and we wonder how they didn't think of it before?


The ETSY Marketplace (Photo: Unsplash)

The rise of countless ecommerce platforms, social media and functional applications in almost every possible field has turned the field of user experience into a profession in itself that receives huge budgets and constant improvement.

And yet, one of the biggest challenges in the field was and remains the subject of searches.



Etsy's new feature is designed to help users discover items when they're having trouble finding the right words to describe a specific product, narrowing search results to make sure they actually find what they're looking for, even if they don't know how to describe it in words.



If in the past, keywords and meta tags were mainly used to classify content according to topics, over the years their use has expanded and today they are also used for searches that are not necessarily dependent on text: images, videos, audio clips and of course products.

In fact, almost all platforms that offer a search feature have relied to date on the same outdated parameters that it is really time to update.

That's why I was so excited when I heard about Etsy's new visual search feature, and I was even a little surprised to find out that it didn't actually exist until today.



So it is true that there is Google LENS, which helps to find images similar to the ones you are looking at, some of which may represent products for sale - and which may not.

Personally, I still haven't been able to understand how this is supposed to be of any use to me.

So it is true that the technology offered by Etsy is not new, but its application, which is specifically focused on finding a product for the purposes of buying, succeeds in surpassing anything similar that has been on the market to date.

Although Google and Pinterest are making giant strides towards the same goal, neither has yet done it as well, simply and practically as Etsy has.

The only (and significant) catch is that as of today, this feature is only reserved for iOS users.

So how does Etsy's visual search work?

In short, iOS users who want to search in the Etsy app will now be able to tap on the new camera icon in the search bar and upload or take a photo that will be used to search for the product on the platform.

In response, Etsy will display a collection of items that are visually similar to the photo the user uploaded.



For example, let's say you stayed in a hotel and fell in love with a lamp that was in the living room, but you have no idea where to buy it.

Instead of writing down "standing lamp for the living room" and then going through thousands of products until you find (or not) the model you wanted, all you have to do is take a picture of it and upload the picture to the Etsy search.

The resulting feed will only display products that are visually similar to the item you uploaded.

It's so simple it's surprising no one invented it before.

Etsy's secret to innovation

Etsy's new feature was developed as part of CodeMosaic, an annual hackathon that gives Etsy engineers a chance to try out new skills while building creative solutions for the platform.



For those who don't know, the cathon is a concept event taken from the worlds of entrepreneurship, in which the participants organize themselves into independent teams to work in a concentrated manner on projects that excite them.

In the case of CodeMosaic, the teams spend the hackathon week working intensively on the projects, collaborating with people they don't normally work with.

This could be, for example, with the aim of making their work easier and more enjoyable, improving the user experience, or increasing the sustainability of the product.

At the end of this intensive week, the teams present their projects, and a special jury selects the winning team, whose project they developed will be incorporated into the product.

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In a blog post announcing the new feature, Etsy said: "We're always investing in our marketplace to make it easier for sellers to grow their businesses. We're excited about this innovative new feature to make it easier for sellers to get discovered and connect with our built-in base of nearly 90 million buyers worldwide the world."



In the quarterly earnings report published by the company on Wednesday, Etsy reported an 11.7% increase in revenue compared to the corresponding quarter of 2021, to $594.5 million. Apparently, this increase is due to the increase in the platform's transaction fee from 5% to 6.5%. The change caused sellers to strike earlier this year, but Etsy noted on its website that the increased fee supports its plans to make “significant investments in marketing, seller tools and creating a world-class customer experience.” Visual search is undoubtedly one of the tools that will help Etsy sellers sell more products with less effort.

  • Marketing and digital

  • developing

Tags

  • etsy

  • Search

  • Photos

  • Ecommerce

  • Google

  • Search Engine

Source: walla

All news articles on 2022-11-06

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