France testbeds new search-by-image function

By Ed | December 18th, 2008 | Category: eBay FR | No Comments »

eBay France are testing a new search feature based on image keywords.

The test is limited to a narrow selection of subcategories in the Clothing and Accessories category, and in the initial incarnation is based around the initial letter of the product being searched for (makes me wonder if baby bonnets, bags, and blouses will all turn up under the same search request).

The announcement (translated to English in the BuildaSkill forums – login required) states -

The beta search engine for images that we present today is implemented only in the category ‘Clothing, Accessories. ”

- The application starts by presenting a series of images based on a keyword initial

- Click on the image you want and the engine will display other images of objects similar to eBay. You can navigate this way discovering new things that “look” at what you’re looking for

- Click on the title of the object that appears at the bottom of each image to go to the object and bid

- Use the search box at the bottom right corner to start a new search on a keyword

There’s no mention of whether sellers will have to select keywords for their images in future, or if they’ll be drawn from listing titles, and I am suspicious that eBay’s categorisation of the image by keyword will be as arbitrary and broken as the current Best Match system.

There’s also no mention of whether it will be applied only to listings with Gallery image selected, or not, although as testing advances, I would expect that to become a criterion for inclusion, which if successful in driving take-up of gallery, in the long term could become the sting in the tail by acting as an incentive for eBay to reintroduce Gallery fees. That last point also being relevant to the current free Gallery pricing on eBay.com and eBay.co.uk