The problem with shopping online, is that it’s not really like shopping for real. Your searches are restricted to what the search engines throw up or which stores you can remember to visit direct (which are usually the same as what the search engines throw up).

Shopping online Today

Then when you go to a single store, you have to rely on the quality of their site and their imagery. And if you’re anything like me (unlikely) you’re not totally sure what you’re after, but you will know the look you’re going for, but expecting the right item when you type in “shirt” “shoes” or “bag” is usually disappointing.

Visual Search from Pixsta

Pixsta Visual Search

The Pixsta powered visual search at Empora.com changes all of that. You click on an image which then performs a likeness search and the clever technology returns similar features of new products from the image you selected. Then you can window shop though all your favourite brands and stores whilst searching by the style and colours that catch your eye. All with no description required – just point and click on the images you think are close to your ideal and narrow it down that way. See here when you buy women’s bags online.

The idea is simple: instead of relying on tags that may or may not have been added to the images, we try to understand what the image depicts based on a pixel-wise analysis.

Have a go and see how easy it is to buy women’s clothes online and get the clothes you want, be it designer items or finding a total outfit that suits you – all in one place. You know you want to.

Well Done Empora and Pixsta.

In a recent news release John Lewis stated it has achieved record figures for online sales:

“Internet sales were driven by demand for gifts, Christmas decorations, furnishing accessories, home electronics and toys.” The Release stated, But how do they get on in the SERPS?.


The John Lewis website is of a high standard, in both design, content and for many keyword related searches. It ranks highly for a wide variety of keyword searches, reflecting its diverse product range.

Using our tools we can see how John Lewis has done for those sectors stated, within Search. John Lewis does well for “electrical appliances” – one of their stated successful terms, but do not perform well in the other areas offering no real consistency. In fact for some, they have even taken a drop over the last few months.

The first chart shows Johnlewis.com performance in Google UK, for the selected keywords over a period of 6 months, from position one to positon 100.

Competitors such as Tesco Direct, perform much better across these diverse product areas showing consistency and generally keeping on page one and two.

Chart 2 shows direct.tesco’s progress in the Google UK.

John Lewis obviously achieves results on the back of its brand equity and from online shoppers who have already experienced the high quality of service. Traffic and repeat custom would rise if they performed better in the SERPS. Having a successful SEO service would undoubtedly help.

For more information please do not hesitate to get in touch.