AI-Powered Visual Product Search Improves Sales Conversion for a Premium Lighting Brand
Overview
The client is a premium lighting brand with nearly 25,000 decorative and architectural lighting products sold through approximately 100 showrooms.
Customers frequently arrived at a showroom with a photograph, screenshot, design reference, or image of a lighting product they wanted to purchase. Sales representatives then had to determine whether the same product existed in the client’s catalog or find a suitable alternative.
With such a large assortment, identifying products visually depended heavily on an associate’s familiarity with the catalog.
Rysun developed Lens, an AI-powered visual product search platform that allows representatives to use an image as the starting point for product discovery.
Industry
Retail & Ecommerce
Challenge
Nearly 500 representatives across approximately 100 showrooms needed a faster way to identify products within a catalog of almost 25,000 items from customer reference images.
Solution
An AI-powered visual search platform that identifies exact or visually similar products and provides product specifications and similarity scores for faster comparison.
Challenge
Nearly 500 showroom and sales representatives needed to work with a catalog containing almost 25,000 products.
It was unrealistic for every representative to remember the appearance, specifications, and available alternatives for every product. The problem became particularly apparent when customers entered a showroom with only a reference image.
Associates often had to search manually, consult experienced colleagues, or rely on their own memory to identify the product. If an exact match could not be found, identifying visually similar alternatives created another layer of difficulty.
The process could lengthen the customer’s buying journey and reduce the likelihood of converting interest into a sale.
Employee turnover added another challenge. When experienced associates left, part of their accumulated product knowledge left with them, requiring new employees to rebuild familiarity with a large catalog over time.
Rysun’s Solution
Rysun developed Lens to make visual product discovery accessible to every showroom representative, regardless of their familiarity with the complete product portfolio.
A representative can submit a customer-provided image to Lens. The platform analyzes the image and searches the client’s product catalog for matching products.
When an exact product is available, Lens helps identify it. When an exact match cannot be found, the application returns visually similar products that the representative can offer as alternatives.
Each result includes a similarity score together with relevant product specifications, helping the associate understand how closely an option matches the customer’s reference and compare alternatives more easily.
The computer vision layer uses YOLOv5-based product detection and identification to support image recognition and visual matching. A FastAPI/Python backend manages processing and integration, while the broader Azure-based architecture uses services including Cosmos DB and Blob Storage to manage application data and image assets.
Lens was designed for the showroom environment, with a lightweight iPad experience that allows representatives to use visual search while assisting customers. Results can also be displayed on a larger showroom screen so customers can review available options and compare products more clearly.
The platform also provides a foundation for extending visual discovery beyond the showroom into future digital and ecommerce experiences.
Business Impact
Lens is designed to make visual product discovery faster and more consistent for showroom sales representatives working across a large product catalog.
By allowing representatives to search with a customer-provided image, the solution reduces reliance on individual product knowledge and makes it easier to identify exact or visually similar products during customer interactions. This can also help newer employees assist customers more confidently and reduce the impact of product knowledge gaps caused by staff turnover.
The business benefits include:
- Faster product identification during showroom interactions
- Reduced dependence on individual employee expertise
- More consistent product recommendations across sales teams
- Improved support for new and less experienced representatives
- A smoother product discovery experience for customers
- A foundation for extending visual search to future digital and ecommerce channels
Conclusion
Lens turned a common showroom problem into a faster product discovery experience. Customers no longer need to know a product name, model number, or specification before beginning their search. A reference image can be enough.
For sales representatives, this means less reliance on memory and more confidence when helping customers explore a large catalog. For the client, the improvement is reflected in measurable gains in customer satisfaction, sales conversion, and business value.
By connecting computer vision with the client’s product catalog, Rysun created a practical AI application that supports both the customer buying journey and the people responsible for guiding it.