Visual Search is available for Fashion catalogs only. Please contact your Bloomreach account representative to try this exciting new feature! Check details [here](🔗).
# **What is Visual Search**
Visual Search empowers your customers to search for products visually. It displays **visually similar shoppable recommendations** that make product discovery personalized and engaging.
Visual Search is especially valuable when shoppers are looking for hard-to-describe products. They can simply upload the product image and hit the search button. This encourages them to explore your vast product catalog without typing a single word!
Make search visual for your shoppers
Such effortless and enjoyable shopper experiences often result in higher AOV and faster conversions.
## Feature scope
We will power **Fashion catalogs** with Visual Search in this feature iteration.
# **How does Visual Search Algorithm work**
The Visual Search leverages a powerful machine-learning engine that:
Collects the image input uploaded by the shopper
Identifies and extracts the primary objects in the image
Enables shoppers to choose one of the extracted objects using the hotspot tag
Generates similar product recommendations
The example below demonstrates Visual Search in action.
# **How to configure Visual Search Widget via Dashboard**
Go to** Pathways & Recommendations > Widget Configurator**
Click **Add Widget**. This opens up the Widget Configuration modal.
Enter the Widget Name.
Choose the Visual Search option from the Primary Algorithm dropdown.
After adding the basic widget information, click **Next Step**.
Now apply the desired merchandising customizations. Please note that product blocklists and attribute rules such as attribute boost, bury, include, and exclude are all supported. Product boost, bury, add to recall, slotting, and sequential lock are _not supported_ for Visual Search.
To view the Visual Search widget results with the applied customizations, click “**Preview**.” In the Preview module, you can simply upload a new image to view the matching product suggestions. Image size should not exceed 2MB. Image types jpeg, jpg, png, and webp are supported for uploading.
Once the upload is done, the image displays yellow hotspot tags for all identified objects, and all matching products are populated in the right-side panel. Now, click on the yellow hotspot tags to view targeted search results for the identified objects. Additionally, the widget recall shows your merchandising customizations.
Once you’ve made the desired customizations and previewed the results, click **Save**. Your newly created widget now appears on the Widget Configurator homepage with its Widget Id. This Widget Id can then be used in the Visual Search API calls.
Please note that the Visual Search widget is not supported on the Widget Query level.
# **Visual Search APIs**
Visual Search offers a set of APIs that allow you to upload the input image, fetch identified objects in the image, and retrieve matching product recommendations.
Check out the [API specifications ](🔗) to learn more about the functionality.
# **Pixel Integration**
You will need to integrate the current [Widget Pixels](🔗) with the details given below. It is not required to fire the pixel for uploading images on the Visual Search APIs. Once the image has been uploaded, set the widget query variable to the “_image_id_” value from the [response](🔗).
Fire **Widget View** pixel every time a Visual Search API response is loaded.
Fire **Widget Click** pixel every time a Visual Search API response product is clicked.
# **How to access Visual Search**
Visual Search is available for Fashion catalogs.
**Live customers using Recommendations**: Please contact the Bloomreach Services team to try the feature.
**Live customers not using Recommendations**: Please contact your Bloomreach Account representative if you’re interested.
**Integrating customers**: Please contact your Technical Services representative who is helping with your integration.
Best Practice
We recommend that you include all the product images when sending your catalog to Bloomreach.
# **Frequently Asked Questions**
**Does Visual Search have a fallback or secondary algorithm?** No, there is no secondary algorithm for Visual Search.
**Will Global ranking rules apply to the Visual Search widget?** Yes, this works similarly to other recommendation widget algorithms.