Shop by Color: Visual Shopping Search Engines

Color shopping searchIt happens so often that you just can’t put into words what you want to buy but you can clearly see an image. Or that you can match the color of your shirt to the color of your new handbag.

Luckily there are quite a few visual search engines to come in handy.

This post lists the coolest and the most popular of them: shopping search tools that allow to search by color!

Happy color-shopping!

1. Etsy

Etsy is the community of sellers who sell homemade products.

Color choice: Huge

Product range: Specific (only handmade)

The scenario:

  1. Just hover over the search field and watch the colors pop up following your mouse.
  2. Click on any color spot to see the product range matching the color:

Etsy color search

The results:

Etsy color search

Additional search options (via the new color search engine):

  • Search by term;
  • Select the color from color picker.

2. Like.com

Like.com is by far the most popular visual search engine for shopping. It indexes the huge variety of products and has the large range of search options.

Color choice: Large

Product range: Huge (Fashion)

The scenario:

  1. Search for the term first;
  2. Click “COLOR” in the navbar and choose one of the available color options:

Like.com visual search

The results:

Color shopping search -Like.com

Additional search options:

  • Search by the price range;
  • Search by brand;
  • Search by material;
  • Limit the search by site.

Shopping search engines with similar color search options:

  • Become (color choice is huge but the search relevancy seems to be inadequate);
  • Shopwiki (the category relevancy is not always precise)
  • TheFind

3. Empora

Empora is the fashion search negine most women will appreciate.

Color choice: Limited

Product range: Large (Fashion)

The scenario:

  • Search for the term first;
  • Choose one of the color names to filter the results (if you have hard time recognizing the color names, try hovering over the color name and you will see the color preview):

Empora color search

The results:

Color search

More search options:

  • Search by price range;
  • Search by retailer.

4. Picitup Shop

Picitup Shop claims to be the “most extended product search on the web”.

Color choice: Large

Product range: Medium

The scenario:

  • Search for the term first;
  • Find the handbag you like most and click “Similar images”
  • Filter results by colors available in the left-hand sidebar (while you are filtering products by color, the color palette is changing based on which colors you can choose from):

Picitup Shop search by color

The results:

Picitup Shop

More search options:

  • Search by brand;
  • Search by material;
  • Search by brand name.