Re:eBay launches visual search tools that let you shop using...
by whoisjuan on Thursday October 26, 2017 @01:24PM
(#15561034)
I would totally use this. 8 years ago I bought a pair of Nike shoes in Paris. I loved those shoes. I tried millions of things to buy a similar pair but I was unsuccessful at finding them.
Maybe the service should be like FlightFox, but for people who are really good at finding stuff. You pay a commission to the individual who helps you find the item.
Re:eBay launches visual search tools that let you shop using...
by thess24 on Thursday October 26, 2017 @04:10PM
(#15562555)
I've been building an automated service very similar to this for womens fashion (mens fashion soon) in my free time over the past 5 months using deep learning. The goal is to index existing items, and then expand to items that are no longer available. So you could take a picture of your shoes/shirt/hat/etc and it would ideally find the same one. If it doesn't find the same exact item, it would find similar items at different price points that you could buy. Getting similar items isn't that hard -- getting the exact item is much trickier though. With the pace of improvement in these types of models, there will probably be a lot of these types of apps popping up over the next few years.
Re:eBay launches visual search tools that let you shop using...
by 51Cards on Thursday October 26, 2017 @01:01PM
(#15560793)
I would use a service like this. I am similar to your friend... When I find a product that I like I'm good with getting more of the exact same in future vs. bouncing around through other brands. I have another Bluetooth headset still in box for when this one dies for example. Usually when this happens it's eBay I turn to (or Google image search) and so I am hopeful for this new system.
You have something. You like it. You want another one. The service gets it for you. This doesn't have to work from a picture -- it could use a UPC barcode or a text description.
Idea originally inspired by a school friends of mine who wore the exact same type of boots for years and years. When the old pair wore out, he'd buy another pair the exact same.
Over the years I've noticed many instances where I really want another one of something I have but it turns out to be either painful or impossible to find. You know however that somewhere someone has a warehouse full of the things.
Also like the electronics industry brokers who can track down an old component for you to repair gear or re-start manufacturing on some old product. Those have existed since at least the 1970's.
A few years ago I tested Amazon's visual product search feature to see if it would do what I wanted. It didn't. I showed an image of some brown boots I was wearing, and certainly the suggested products were also brown boots, but not the same kind.