Image Search (Visual Search)

Overview

Image Search (also called visual search) lets your customers find products by uploading a photo or taking a picture with their camera. ExpertRec analyzes the uploaded image and returns visually similar products from your catalog. This is especially useful for fashion, home decor, furniture, and any category where customers often know what they want but do not know the product name.

Configure Image Search in your ExpertRec control panel under Advanced > Image Search (route: /ecom/image-search).

How It Works

1. A customer clicks the camera icon in the search bar (visible only when Image Search is enabled).
2. They upload an image from their device or take a photo with their camera.
3. ExpertRec extracts visual features from the image, including shape, color, texture, and style.
4. The system compares those features against all indexed product images in your catalog.
5. A ranked list of visually similar products is returned on the results page.

Enabling Image Search

1. Log in to your ExpertRec control panel.
2. Navigate to Advanced > Image Search.
3. Toggle Image Search on.
4. Save your settings. The camera icon will appear in the search bar on your storefront.

Note: Image Search requires that your product catalog includes high-quality product images. Products without images will not appear in visual search results.

Configuration Options

• Camera icon position: Place the icon inside the search bar (right side) or as a standalone button near the search bar.
• Result count: Set how many visually similar products to return (default is 20).
• Similarity threshold: Adjust the minimum similarity score required for a product to appear in results. A higher threshold returns fewer but more visually accurate matches.
• Accepted image formats: JPEG, PNG, and WebP are supported by default.

Best Practices

• Use consistent product photography: Images taken against a white or neutral background with consistent lighting produce more accurate visual matches.
• Index all product variants: Upload images for every color and style variant so that visual search can surface the correct variant directly.
• Combine with text search: Image Search and text search work together. Customers can refine visual results with keywords after an image search returns initial results.