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5 min read
Why traditional search no longer reflects how we shop
Home & Living ecommerce is outgrowing traditional keyword search. As shoppers think in styles and visual inspiration, AI-driven discovery is redefining how products are found.
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Home & Living ecommerce is outgrowing traditional keyword search. As shoppers think in styles and visual inspiration, AI-driven discovery is redefining how products are found.
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Home and living ecommerce continues to grow across Europe, representing a market worth over €300 billion annually, with online sales now accounting for approximately 25–30% of total category revenue and increasing year over year. Yet many businesses are encountering the same limiting factor: product discovery has not evolved at the same pace as customer behaviour.
Today’s shoppers do not think in SKUs, category trees, or exact product names. They think in spaces, styles, use cases, and visual references:
Yet most ecommerce search experiences still rely heavily on keyword-based logic and rigid filtering, creating a disconnect between intent and results.
This gap between how customers search and how systems respond has become one of the largest UX and conversion bottlenecks in home and living ecommerce.
In Home & Living commerce, customers rarely begin with a precise product in mind. They begin with an intention: to make a space feel warmer, calmer, more functional, or more personal.
Most ecommerce systems still rely on a search logic designed for exact matches keywords, filters, and predefined categories.
This mismatch creates a structural problem.
In home and living, shoppers are rarely searching for one exact item. They usually have a clear goal — a type of product, a style, or a space to furnish — but expect a process that helps them refine options along the way. A search for “modern lamp” often returns an overwhelming mix of results, while queries like “something like this, but lighter and smaller” cannot be expressed through keywords at all.
Customers are not lacking intent; they are lacking a search experience that can interpret, refine, and respond conversationally.
Home and living retailers manage vast assortments with minor variations in size, finish, or material. Customers are forced to navigate deep categories, apply multiple filters, and scroll through near-identical products.
Impact: Browsing fatigue, reduced engagement, declining conversion — especially on mobile.
Shoppers often arrive inspired by editorial content or social media imagery, where entire rooms or styled scenes create desire not individual products. Yet ecommerce experiences still require shoppers to search for each item separately.
When shoppers are unsure whether a product fits their space or matches the rest of the room, hesitation sets in. Without clear context or reassurance, many abandon carts or continue their search elsewhere.
vviinn provides a composable, AI-powered discovery layer designed to replace rigid search logic with intent-driven experiences without requiring replatforming.
Home and living is inherently visual. With visual search, customers can upload an image from a magazine, social media post, or real-world environment and instantly discover similar or matching products from your catalogue.
Value for retailers:
Shoppers often combine partial knowledge with visual references:
“Something like this, but in oak,” or “same style, smaller size.”
Multimodal search allows customers to express intent using images, natural language, and refinements together, producing significantly more accurate results than keyword search alone.
Value for retailers:
Home environments are rarely purchased item by item. With Shop the Look, retailers can make entire rooms, styled scenes, or editorial imagery fully shoppable allowing customers to buy coordinated sets in just a few clicks.
Example:
A retailer publishes a styled bedroom image.
With Shop the Look, customers can:
Impact:
Higher average order value, better use of lifestyle content, and a UX that mirrors how people actually shop for their homes.
Modernising search and product discovery is not a UX enhancement it is a direct growth lever. When customers can find what they are looking for quickly and confidently, the impact is felt across the entire ecommerce operation.
By improving search and discovery, Home and living retailers can achieve:
Most importantly, modern search replaces friction with confidence. Instead of forcing shoppers to adapt to rigid systems, retailers enable discovery experiences that feel intuitive, relevant, and aligned with how people actually shop for their homes, building trust, loyalty, and long-term value.
Home and living ecommerce does not suffer from a lack of products or inspiration. It suffers from outdated discovery experiences that force customers to adapt to systems instead of the other way around.
By investing in AI-powered discovery, retailers can turn visual inspiration into conversion, reduce friction across the customer journey, and build scalable, future-ready ecommerce experiences that evolve with customer behavior.
Search and UX are no longer peripheral features, they are core revenue drivers.
vviinn helps home and living ecommerce businesses align product discovery with real customer behaviour, transforming images, intent, and inspiration into measurable commercial outcomes.
Ready to fix product discovery in your ecommerce experience? Contact vviinn to learn how our AI-powered search and discovery can help.
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