Window Shopping of the Future with Ido Segev, VP of Partnerships and Business Development at Syte
“The idea with product discoveries is to give every type of shopper the right pathway that fits them individually, because one size doesn’t fit all anymore.”
Have you ever seen someone wearing a shirt that you just have to have? Or maybe come across a certain piece of furniture that would be absolutely perfect for your space? Now imagine being able to snap a picture of that item and within moments, being directly connected to the product. Ido Segev and his team at Syte are making all this and more possible by leveraging AI to revolutionize product discovery. Here, he shares some key insights.
How does Syte work?
Did you ever imagine a day where you could see a product that you like, maybe a leather sofa at a friend’s house or a pair of shoes worn by a stranger and be connected to that product in seconds, without saying a word? Well, thanks to the team at Syte, that day is here.
“So let’s take an example I’m walking down the street and I see something or someone may be wearing something that I like. What I can do then is, if I know that my favorite brand is using a product discovery solution, I can just open my camera, take a picture on this site and find very accurate results that are highly similar to what this person is wearing. The same thing can go for, for example, if I go to a friend’s place and I see their nearly renovated place, right? Let's say, living room, I can take a picture of the whole space. Within less than a second, I’ll get the breakdown of all of the different items in the space. And I can purchase the look or the room.
Now, this is only how the discovery experience starts. It can start from social media, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, from wherever. Inspiration today is key for brands to succeed and to bring traffic to their site.”
How Syte caters to the customer.
Let's face it, shopping is easier than it’s ever been. It doesn’t take much to search for a product online, research options, click to buy and have it show up on your doorstep a few days later. Could the process be any simpler? How about your very own online store, personalized to your style and ready to serve up options at any time.
“So the beauty of product discovery, if we look at it, not only a camera search and how much you’re clicking on it and, and proactively uploading an image. It’s really about recommendation engines and discovery icons and the augmented textual search, that combines these deep tags that we can take from every image and find accurate results. It’s about the hyper-personalization recommendations that really create a kind of an environment that understands the individual customer without really asking them to take any proactive action. That’s the beauty of it.”
What is the future of product discovery?
Remember old-school window shopping? When you would go to the mall, walk by the different retail stores and peer into the windows until a product grabbed your attention? For many of us, it’s still a thing that we like to do, but with our busy schedules, it’s difficult to find the time. You’ll be happy to know, window shopping is not a thing of the past, it’s actually the future. Except this time, the mall comes to you and the window is your smartphone.
“The world is going toward a place where people will shop more and more with their eyes. And explaining something in text is still very much in use, right? And people are, they like searching with text, but as visual AI will go on and become more available to customers, we believe that the notion of searching and discovering using visual AI capabilities will just get stronger and stronger.”
What advice would you give to someone who’s a part of a growing company?
Have you ever felt out of your league? Maybe the goals set for you seem too high and the hurdles too large? Ido Segev has been there and has overcome monumental obstacles in his personal and professional journey. He has some advice for us all.
“I think that determination, persistence and believing in your higher goal, and understanding that it might take some time. Along the way there might be some barriers and some people might say, that’s not for me after they meet a big challenge. I think that actually crossing the challenge and really confronting it, whatever it may be and… actually resolving it, if it’s related to other people, for example. Resolving it in a very mature way will teach everybody, on an individual level, how to solve it better next time..”
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