eBay Taps Into Apple Visual Intelligence To Enhance Image-Based Search Capabilities
eBay taps into Apple Visual Intelligence to enhance image-based search capabilities for buyers using iOS devices including iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 17, iPhone Air, and iPhone 17 Pro models.
Direct of Engineering, Search Timothy Sears announced the new feature in a LinkedIn article, saying it will make it easier than ever before for buyers to find things they love on eBay using their photos and screenshots.
Timothy Sears
eBay unveiled a new way for buyers to discover and purchase items through a simple picture!
For years, eBay customers have loved taking photos with our iOS app to find things they love with eBay Visual Search. Currently, shoppers often take multiple steps—capturing screenshots, opening the app, and searching visually or textually—to find products they’ve seen elsewhere.
With Apple’s introduction of Visual Intelligence, buyers can shop at eBay seamlessly, without the extra steps.
Buyers can use screenshots from their photo gallery, circle items they are viewing anywhere on the web, or use their camera to take a picture of an item and instantly search eBay for matching results.
eBay first introduced search by image capability within their own app in 2017 but struggled to deliver promises experience, eventually being forced to remove the feature for several months in 2021 due to "inconsistencies" in results.
Liz Morton
And even once they finally re-enabled it, search by image continues to struggle with inconsistent and irrelevant results, despite eBay saying they are increasingly using new AI image recognition technology to enhance the product.
Liz Morton
Today, the in app eBay search by image feature still returns wildly irrelevant results far too often and other image based functionality like "find visually similar" in search and listings and "press, hold, discover" have also failed to deliver accurate, relevant suggestions.
Liz Morton
Meanwhile, the AI-powered, image based "magical" product listing experience eBay promised to sellers in 2023 still doesn't live up to the hype, requiring far too much manual text entry to give the AI context clues because it's simply not able to identify many items from an image alone.
Liz Morton
Tapping into new device capabilities to enable image search may provide a better user experience while also taking the costs and difficulties of development off of marketplaces themselves.
And eBay is alone in taking advantage of Apple Visual Intelligence - Poshmark also recently announced they are using it to "enhance" their internal Posh Lens feature which has also at times struggled with providing relevant and accurate results.
Liz Morton
Have you used Apple Visual Intelligence to search for items listed on eBay and if so, does it work better than eBay's in app image search? Let us know in the comments below!
