5 ways Amazon is making it easier to search and shop for products

One of the most complex scenarios we encounter is helping a customer find what they want when they don’t know what they are looking for. For example, you need a replacement part for a home appliance, but don’t know the name of the part. To help you navigate this situation, we offer the ability to tap the camera icon in the search bar and snap a picture, and our visual search algorithms will find the best possible matches across our vast selection.

We recently added a new feature to our visual search tool that enables you to add text to your visual search queries. When you perform a visual search, you'll see the search bar with the thumbnail of the image you captured, along with a prompt ("+ Add text") to add any text to help narrow your search results. For example, if you’re looking to order a replacement part for your dishwasher, you can now snap a photo of the part and type the brand of appliance (e.g., “Frigidaire”) to narrow your search results.

When making a purchase for home items, such as a sofa, espresso maker, or smart TV, you want to know whether the product will fit in your room and look good in your space. We recently extended our View in Your Room feature—which enables you to see exactly how a piece of furniture or décor will look in your space—to include tabletop items, such as lamps, home décor, and small appliances like toaster ovens and coffee makers. The new mobile experience uses augmented reality to place the products you’re searching for on a tabletop surface in your home. Not sure if that coffee maker will fit on your kitchen countertop? Now, using View in Your Room, you can easily visualize how it will look in your space and make a more confident purchase decision.You can move the products from one surface to another to better evaluate how these products fit in your environment. To get started, click the “View in Your Room” button under the product image on the mobile product detail page.

We know that what our customers search for and purchase changes over time—and we are always adding new products to our store. We recently started showing sales trend data (e.g., “10K+ bought in past month”) in search results and on product detail pages, to provide more information about the products you’re searching for. Now, in addition to seeing whether an item has thousands of five-star reviews or is a Best Seller, you also have an indicator of the product’s recent popularity.

We know you often see products you like when checking email, browsing social media, or engaging in an online conversation, and want to search for them in Amazon’s Store. Now you can, with Find-on-Amazon. If you spot a product you like anywhere online, tap the “Share” button, choose the Amazon Shopping app, and click “Find products on Amazon.” You’ll be taken straight to the Amazon Shopping app, where you’ll see similar products. You don’t even need to know what the product is called, or how to describe it. With Find-on-Amazon, finding what you want has never been easier.

We know that many shoppers search for previously purchased items, so we’ve made it even easier to find them. Once we recognize that you are searching for a previously purchased item, we’ll present the item at the top of search results with the date of the last purchase. In cases where it is a frequently reordered item, we will also show a thumbnail image of the item in the search bar, making it easy to click to the product detail page and complete the purchase.