South African online retailer Spree.co.za has added an image search app feature to its existing search functionality to help shoppers find items through imagery instead of a word search.
The app now features a camera icon, which allows shoppers to take a live photo or upload an image from the smartphone photo library, and it will return visually similar items in seconds. Shoppers can tap and hold any product image in a category or search results and the feature will highlight visually similar items. The app feature uses artificial intelligence technologies to base its suggestions, which includes silhouette, colour, pattern and texture.
"Our goal is to make the shopping experience for our customers as easy and intuitive as possible and, with our new image recognition capabilities and similar style shopping feature, we think we have come closer to achieving this. Searching for items with photos and images saves consumers from having to type keyword combinations, which is challenging on mobile devices," says Sven Schoof, Spree's head of customer experience.
Last year, the e-retailer worked with Google to implement a mobile app-first approach in an effort to improve the overall mobile user experience.
At the time Schoof said the mobile-first approach resulted in a 484% increase in mobile orders for the online retailer. "Spree has seen a 135% increase in mobile users and a 288% increase in mobile page views. Additionally, there has been a 32% decrease in page load time for mobile users," he said.
Spree, which is part of Media24's e-commerce division, was launched in April 2013. According to the media company's results for the six months to 30 September 2016, the e-fashion business delivered a strong top line performance with growth of 84%.
"Our online fashion business, Spree, recorded strong growth in orders (up 79% year-on-year) and sales (up 84% year-on-year) - especially via the shopping app. We rolled out new functionality across all platforms, established a second warehouse, in Johannesburg, to improve speed to market," said the company.
"In a world where words are commonly replaced by emojis and images, it makes sense that our shopping habits follow the same path and we're very proud to be the first online retailer in Africa to lead this visual trend," Schoof noted.
The image search and similar styles shopping feature is available on the Spree iOS app, with a rollout plan to the Android app and the Web site scheduled for the next couple of months.
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