The e-commerce search industry has changed.

Now, 91% of consumers say they’re more likely to shop from e-shops that remember their preferences and use them to provide relevant product recommendations.

As an e-commerce business owner, you can no longer rely on default, CMS-integrated search solutions. They are not enough.

Meet the advancement of e-commerce search - vector search - that is considered a new normal.

How have modern user expectations shifted?

Modern users expect a more personalized and hyper-intuitive shopping experience. They want this relevant user experience so badly that they started changing their personal data-sharing habits.

Now, over 80% of users agree to share their data to “receive the benefits of a personalized experience.”

It depicts the strong willingness to receive a seamless shopping experience modern e-shops must ensure.

Luckily, there’s just a new technology for that - vector search.

What is vector search, and how does it work?
Vector search leverages advanced AI algorithms and machine learning techniques to identify and match items based on their inherent qualities and relationships within a dataset.

In other words, it “sees” products just like a person would do:

  • It can extract visual information about the product, like the blue color of the sweater;
  • It understands the similarities (or differences) between the products. For instance, a computer keyboard is more similar to a computer mouse (within context) than to a doormat;
  • It can interpret broad and complex search queries, like “List me all the ingredients I need for carbonara”;

and so on.

Unlike traditional keyword-based searches, vector search focuses on the attributes, features, and patterns that define a product, allowing for a more intuitive and accurate method of finding items.

It goes beyond keywords, diving deep into the very nature of products and understanding their features and nuances.

How can e-commerce businesses satisfy the expectations of modern shoppers?

By leveraging language models to generate semantically rich vectors, vector search enables e-commerce platforms to understand and match the nuanced intent behind user queries.

It means that vector search can interpret these queries semantically and return relevant results, even if the product descriptions lack the exact keywords.

“Something to wear on a winter mountain hike” is enough for a search engine to suggest user-relevant product options.

Visual search for fast and relevant product recommendations

In the fashion or home decor industries, customers can upload images, and vector search can find visually similar items in the catalog, enhancing the shopping experience.

An uploaded picture of a dot-patterned dress is enough for a vector search to provide picture-matching products.

Smoothly handled synonyms for expanded product offerings

Vector search can understand synonyms and common misspellings in search queries, ensuring customers find what they’re looking for without frustration.

Some e-commerce search solutions like LupaSearch take a step further and allow e-commerce businesses to dynamically boost user-relevant, AI-generated synonyms.

In this way, when no results are found for a user’s query, automatically applied synonyms increase the relevance of the search and improve the satisfactory search experience.

For global e-commerce platforms, vector search can bridge the language gap, allowing customers to search in their native language and still find relevant products listed in another language.

Also, it can assist users who search in English at local stores - e-commerce search can automatically translate the English word and return product recommendations in the store’s language.

LupaSearch - your go-to vector search solution for e-commerce
As an e-commerce business owner, meeting the expectations of modern users becomes a must.

Vector search can significantly improve the shopping experience and cater to the diverse and complex needs of modern consumers.

Ready to boost your e-commerce search relevance?
Try out LupaSearch - an AI-enhanced vector search that knows how your customers think.

Book a free product demo at LupaSearch, and let’s meet the demands of your customers.