Image search in India’s e-commerce registers 180% growth, says study

Image search in the Indian e-commerce industry has registered a 180% growth in 2022 from the previous year, according to a new report published on Thursday. The report based on a survey conducted by visual search company ViSenze that works with brands and merchants globally added that image search was used 1.4 billion times last year in e-commerce websites and apps across the country. 

Fashion and apparel were the most searched items, making up 72% of all image searches while footwear, jewellery, and ethnic wear also saw a significant increase in product searches, accounting for 44% of all searches, said the report.

Visual search, which allows users to discover products by clicking on a similar-looking picture, has been around for a while and has been used by Google, Amazon and Pinterest. 

At Q2 2022 results of Google and Alphabet, CEO Sundar Pichai announced that people are using Google Lens to conduct visual searches more than 8 billion times a month. 

ViSenze, which now processes over a billion queries a month from retailers, Rakuten, Zalora, Meesho, DFS, EyeBuyDirect, among others said that while image search that has also helped consumers to find the item they are looking for faster and more accurately and compare products by just using an image is not a new concept in ecommerce, but in the last 12 months, the growth has been alarming. “In India, it is changing the way Gen Z and Consumers from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities are shopping,” it said. 

The company reasoned that with over 120 major languages and thousands of dialects, text or voice search alone is not enough for retailers to reach a broader audience. Consumers often face language barriers in describing most products. This is where the power of visual search comes in. By simply taking a screenshot or photo, customers can easily and accurately find the products they are looking for. Now with the advancements in AI computer vision technology, shoppers can now even receive recommendations for complementary products, it said. 

"Visual search is the hidden influencer driving the future of e-commerce in India," said Oliver Tan, CEO and Co-Founder of ViSenze. "It provides consumers with an easy and accurate way to search for products while helping retailers better connect and retain their target audience."

Tan said that image search traffic now contributes between 9-14% of their overall search traffic and generates higher conversions than text search. “During the 2022 Diwali festival, the company saw a 17% year-on-year increase in online sales, and ViSenze Visual Search was used close to 140 million times," he said, aading that an interesting observation was how shoppers took snapshots of products and compared results across different retailers before making the final purchase.

A May 2020 report by US-based Zion Market Research, stated that the global visual search market was valued at approximately $7,000 million in 2019 and is expected to generate around $28,470 million by 2027, at a CAGR of 17.5% between 2019 and 2027. 

The report further said that the utilisation of chatbots in visual search is supposed to create new learning experiences for the visual search market in the years to come.