American Mobile Shoppers By Device, 2013-2018 [TABLE]

American Mobile Shoppers By Device, 2013-2018 [TABLE]

Millions of Americans use their smartphones while shopping every day. But the current search experience is not ideally suited for mobile. “It’s not as easy to type on a mobile phone as it is on the desktop with keyboard layouts being the way they are,” said Brad Folkens, co-founder and CTO of image recognition firm CamFind. “We think there’s great opportunity and potential for visual search,” said Eddie Baeb, spokesman for Target. “It just makes so much sense. It does take out a potential layer, what many people refer to as kind of a friction point.”

The real promise of visual search in retail, however, extends beyond resolving typing issues. “Visual search is not here to replace the keyboard,” said Adi Pinhas, founder and CEO of Superfish. “Visual search is for the cases in which I have no words to describe what I see.” Read the rest at eMarketer.