Furniture retailer OSTERMANN introduces visual product search with vviinn in its online shop

Buy a sofa with your mobile phone photo

And this is how the image-based product search works: You take a photo of a friend’s sofa with your mobile phone. You want to buy exactly the same model. This picture can be uploaded with a click on the new camera icon in the OSTERMANN online shop. With another click you get suggestions with stylistically the same or very similar products. Any other form of image files, for example screenshots from Instagram, can also be used in the new camera search field.

The image-based product search (visual search) has many advantages. It is much more intuitive and leads to more stylish results than the conventional text-based product search. The visual intelligence software vviinn analyzes a product image based on more than 1000 characteristics. On this basis, stylistically suitable products are suggested within 100 milliseconds.

These product recommendations usually correspond much more to the image that customers have in mind at the moment of the search. In the case of products such as furniture and home articles in particular, linguistic search terms can quickly be misleading. For example, we are looking for a gray “loveseat” two-seater with matching decorative cushions and high legs made of beech wood. Such a model would be difficult to find using keywords and search filters. The visual intelligence software, on the other hand, finds stylistically similar sofas in a split second.

Visual intelligence increases sales rate

OSTERMANN is one of the pioneers of this technology in German E-commerce industry. The company has been using the software from the Berlin provider Mediaopt as the basis for product recommendations (visual recommendations) in its online shops since 2020. With the introduction of the active image search for customers, OSTERMANN is now taking the next step.

Philipp Derksen, founder and product owner of vviinn: “A picture is worth a thousand words. And intuition sells more than a thousand words. This is shown by the experiences of our customers. In tests we were able to prove that the use of vviinn increased the sales quota in online shops by more than 250 percent. Visual product recommendations are therefore the better choice, especially in an area such as furnishings, where aesthetics are important.”

Oliver Hohmeier, Management E-Commerce & Multi-Channel: “We switched to the visual search and product recommendations from vviinn and are positively surprised by the leap in quality and the ease of integration. Our customers get an inspirational guide and we are happy to have found a strategic and innovative business partner in vviinn ”.

OSTERMANN is one of the leading furnishing companies in western Germany. The company has also been running successful online furniture shops since 1993. More than 140,000 articles from the living room, bedroom and bathroom furniture sectors as well as numerous small pieces of furniture and specialist ranges are available online at OSTERMANN.DE, TRENDS.DE, and MOEBEL-SHOP.DE.

About vviinn

vviinn (pronounced: Vienna) is an AI-based software solution for visual product search and product recommendations for online shops. The tool enables an intuitive shopping experience for customers and thus higher conversions for shop operators.

The vviinn component can be integrated into any front end and is not dependent on tracking user behavior. vviinn is a product from the Berlin-based e-commerce experts at Mediaopt GmbH. Mediaopt has been developing software solutions for the e-commerce industry since 2009 and advising companies on their digital sales channel strategy.