ASOS has recently announced that they will be introducing a new visual search tool to its mobile app, meaning that users who are searching an item in particular can do so by uploading a photo of said item, and the search will try to find something in the store that is an exact match or something that comes close enough.
So why mobile first and not desktop? According to the company, they claim that 80% of its traffic in the UK comes from mobile devices, which means that clearly a lot of people seem to be doing their browsing and shopping while on their phones, so focusing the tool on mobile makes sense.
ASOS is definitely not the first company to offer visual search. Earlier this year Pinterest rolled out its Lens feature to its users to let them search for items on its website based on the photo they uploaded.