In detailing how technologies including augmented reality are improving its search and other online functions, Amazon is tacitly acknowledging that consumers need help getting what they want from the endless aisle and is seeking to provide it.
As its assortment has grown, Amazon noted in a blog post, the company has worked to bolster product search to aid shoppers. Of course, it offers shortcuts such as recent and trending searches that might interest a given consumer. Amazon also pointed out that it has made improvements to autocomplete suggestions, spelling corrections and prompts for related searches.
Amazon emphasized that it continues trying new search features and upgrading existing functions to find better ways to help consumers across the shopping task.
Recent ways Amazon has improved search and discovery, the company maintained, include:
- Visualizing Products on Tables and Countertops. To help in making purchase decisions on home items from sofas to espresso makers, Amazon has extended its View in Your Room feature, which virtually places an item in an image of the consumer’s domestic space. The new mobile feature uses augmented reality to, effectively, place search items on a tabletop or counter surface to see how it fits in terms of space and style. Users can move an item from one surface to another to better evaluate how it might fit in the home.
- Image and Text Search. Complex search scenarios that come into play when consumers don’t know exactly what they’re trying to find, as in a replacement part for a home appliance that the person can’t name. To help, Amazon is giving shoppers the ability to tap the camera icon in the search bar and snap a picture so that its visual search algorithms can look for the best possible matches across the company’s vast selection. A new function recently added is a visual search tool that enables shoppers to add text to visual search queries to help narrow and complete searches.
- Discovering Popular Products with Sales Trend Information. Amazon has begun publishing sales trend data – such as, for example, “10K+ bought in the past month” – as part of search results and on product detail pages, so shoppers have an indication of a product’s recent popularity.
- Searching with the Sharing Feature on Mobile. Shoppers who find a product in an email, on social media or elsewhere online can tap the Share button, choose the Amazon Shopping app and click Find Products on Amazon. When that’s done, the shopper is taken to the Amazon Shopping app to find similar products.
- Easing Previous Purchase Reorders. When it recognizes that shoppers are searching for a previously purchased item, Amazon will present the product at the top of search results with the date of the last purchase. In cases when it’s a frequent reorder, Amazon will also show a thumbnail image of the item in the search bar, making it easy to immediately click through to the product detail page and complete a purchase.
In addition, Amazon recently announced a new AI-powered feature that provides a short paragraph right on product detail pages highlighting item features and customer sentiment frequently mentioned across written reviews to help shoppers determine at a glance what others think about a given product.
