Showing what you want with a picture is often easier than describing what you want with words. Especially when it comes to unusual or complex products.

To help shoppers quickly communicate what they are seeking DirectBuy Inc. decided to incorporate image recognition technology into its newly launched app.

The members-only retailer gives its shoppers access to products from wholesalers and manufacturers. The products are typically between 30% and 50% less than what they would cost at a retailer, says Ted Fay, senior director of digital marketing and e-commerce. DirectBuy charges $39 a month for membership and has 200,000 members.

DirectBuy has more than one million SKUs, which are often difficult for shoppers to filter through, Fay says.

“It’s a challenge,” Fay says. “If you say, ‘I want to buy a couch,’ Well, I’ve got tens of thousands of coaches, and different fabrics. So it’s hard for you to select.”

In DirectBuy’s app, shoppers can now send in a picture of what they want, and the app will find that product, or a similar one available for purchase on DirectBuy. For example, if a consumer sees a lamp she likes while vising a friend, she can open the app and tap the “I Want That” button, which accesses her smartphone’s camera. She takes a picture and fills in a few questions, such as if she knows the manufacturer and her budget. After she hits send, DirectBuy’s image recognition software analyzes the picture and creates a list of possible matches. DirectBuy’s employees will go through the match list, which could have around 25 results, and then send between one and three of the best matches to the shopper via email.

Since DirectBuy is a members-only retailer, it already has the shopper’s email. A shopper can also upload a picture within the “I Want That” feature, so she doesn’t always have to instantly take a picture. DirectBuy does not promise how quickly it will get back to the shopper, but usually responds within a day, Fay says.

DirectBuy is thrilled with the success of this feature, Fay says. DirectBuy attributes more than $2 million in sales to the I Want That feature. 31% of the retailer’s members have made a purchase soon after using the button, Fay says.

The I Want That feature is only available in the retailer’s app, in part because DirectBuy could easily integrate the camera into the app button, Fay says. This may be a feature down the line it incorporates on its mobile site, but that’s not on the road map yet, he says.

DirectBuy launched its app in August 2015, along with a responsive design website. Responsive design allows a single website to adjust to the size of the screen the visitor is viewing. This is the first iteration of a mobile-optimized website for DirectBuy, Fay says.

The retailer decided it was time to make it easier for its members to shop on mobile devices when it realized not many consumers were completing purchases on their small screens, Fay says. Plus, the main way DirectBuy communicates with its consumers is via email—it sends three to five emails a week—and the majority of consumers were opening DirectBuy’s email on a mobile device. If a shopper taps on a link in the email to visit DirectBuy’s site and has to navigate a non-mobile-optimized site, that’s not an ideal experience for her, Fay says.

Since August, 30,000 shoppers have used the app, which is 15% of all of the retailer’s members, Fay says. A consumer averages about two app sessions per month, and the average session lasts four minutes and 47 seconds, he says. Now, 36% of DirectBuy’s e-commerce transactions are made via a smartphone and tablet, compared to 26% in July 2015, which is the last full month before the responsive design upgrade.

Four DirectBuy employees developed the image recognition software over 18 months, Fay says. DirectBuy also worked with software technology vendor eInfoChips Ltd. for the app. Fay did not disclose how much the app cost to develop.

When a shopper goes to check out in the app, she is redirected to DirectBuy’s mobile-optimized website, Fay says. Because DirectBuy developed the app and the responsive design site concurrently, the retailer decided that this would be a faster and cheaper option than launching a separate in-app checkout, Fay says.

“Linking the app checkout to the website eliminated the need to develop a parallel checkout process,” Fay says. “This ensured we could bring the app to market more quickly, and at lower cost, while still providing our members with an excellent online experience from mobile.”

DirectBuy is letting consumers know about updated app via its quarterly, print catalogues, social media ads, ads on its website and emails.

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