{"id":36012,"date":"2018-11-13T19:59:24","date_gmt":"2018-11-14T00:59:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digital.hbs.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/houzz-leverage-deep-learning-to-level-up-its-game-in-online-marketplace\/"},"modified":"2018-11-13T20:00:01","modified_gmt":"2018-11-14T01:00:01","slug":"houzz-leverage-deep-learning-to-level-up-its-game-in-online-marketplace","status":"publish","type":"hck-submission","link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/houzz-leverage-deep-learning-to-level-up-its-game-in-online-marketplace\/","title":{"rendered":"Houzz Leverage Deep Learning to Level Up its Game in Online Marketplace"},"content":{"rendered":"

Started through word of mouth, Houzz is an online marketplace platform that connects professional interior and exterior designers with the house owners by charging the 15% commission fees. Over the years, it has also adopted the pinterest model to provide inspirations for home design. Very soon, the company realized that this commission based model was not sustainable.\u201cPeople come to Houzz because they want to get everything they need to improve their homes in one place, from inspiration to execution,\u201d said Alon Cohen, Houzz co-founder and president [1].<\/span><\/p>\n

October 2014, the company announced the beta launch of its newest revenue channel, the Houzz Marketplace, which will allow users to directly buy some of the products they see when they browse the site. The service currently features over one million products from a large variety of sellers [2].<\/span><\/p>\n

However, with over 15,000 merchants selling on Houzz today [3], consumers could be struggled to find the pieces that satisfy their decorating needs, in particular those who are looking for furnitures that match unique design styles or material qualifications.<\/span><\/p>\n

With marketplace being the major revenue driver of the business, how can Houzz drive better furniture shopping experience in a marketplace with such a massive amount of product offerings. How can they nudge consumer behavior from inspirations to conversion in a smarter way? <\/span><\/p>\n

For Houzz, deep learning is the answer.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How did Houzz do it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

September 2016, House introduced Visual Match on Houzz.com and in the Houzz app [4].\u00a0 Visual Match scans photos to identify similar products \u2014 from tables and sofas to mirrors and plumbing fixtures \u2014 and shows you examples of those products that are available in the Houzz Shop [5]. With Visual Match, consumers can easily discover and buy various types of products and materials that inspire them in photos. See the featured image below [6], a consumer browses this particular image for decorating inspiration. Simply hovering over the lamp in this photo, this consumer can click the magnifying glass if he is interested in the product. Based on the click response, the web server will then quickly make a call to its product image database. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

By applying its proprietary imaging scanning and matching algorithm (based on metadata collected from all the lamps in its product database), it quickly displays eight different lamps with a very close visual match to the lamp in the original photobook. Consumers then have the choices to click the image of lamp, which then get directed to to ecommerce section of the site. They can browse through the product details and purchase this product from there. <\/span><\/p>\n

While Visual match has made it so much easier for consumers to discover and buy products on Houzz in the short run, the company is also thinking of further revolutionizing the online furniture shopping experience in the long run. Houzz recently started to experiment with augmented reality that leverages a catalog of 500,000 images for people to view, move and install in their virtual rooms [7]. The product images will appear more \u201clifelike\u201d than ever in the virtual rooms, ultimately driving higher purchasing intent and more satisfying furniture shopping experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A path forward <\/strong><\/p>\n

While deep learning has created significantly more positive browsing and purchasing experience for its consumers, there are still problems remain unsolved. Image below [8] is a perfect example. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

When a consumer is interested in the coat hanger behind the sofa, he hovers to the object and clicks the image tag. Unfortunately, only a list of lamps are displayed. One assumption could be that the product database doesn\u2019t have enough metadata info stored for coat hangers; or it could be that the product offerings themselves are very limited. One recommendation to improve the visual match quality is to collect multidimensional meta tags for the products and assign priorities to different training rules in its matching algorithm. In addition to just using visual proximity as the key matching factor, the database could also group all the products into different product-SKU categories. These product categories could have higher priority than that of visual proximity when image matching algorithm is applied. In the long run, Houzz could also develop functionalities that enable user-generated filter rules based on product style, price range, materials etc to further improve image matching quality. <\/span><\/p>\n

The key open questions then are: 1) How cooperative will designers be when they find out that all the photobooks they provide have now become the marketing tool for Houzz while their original purposes were to attract commissions from consumers; would this affect the product metadata collection process? 2) How much authority would consumers be willing to give up when browsing product offerings? Should product offerings be displayed based on user generated rules rather than purely algorithm based rules that consumers have no control of? <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

(Word count: 793)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

References<\/p>\n

[1]\u201cHouzz Raises $165M Series D Funding Round Led By Sequoia To Fuel International Expansion.\u201d Techcrunch, September 14, 2016.
\nhttps:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2016\/09\/14\/houzz-now-uses-deep-learning-to-help-you-find-and-buy-products-in-its-photos, accessed September 2016<\/p>\n

[2] \u201cHouzz Raises $165M Series D Funding Round Led By Sequoia To Fuel International Expansion.\u201d Techcrunch, September 1, 2014. https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2014\/10\/01\/houzz-raises-165m-series-d-led-by-sequoia-to-fuel-international-expansion, accessed September 2014.<\/p>\n

[3] \u201cFind furniture that suits your style with Houzz\u2019s new visual match tool.\u201d Digital Trends, September 14, 2016. https:\/\/www.digitaltrends.com\/home\/houzz-visual-match, accessed September 2016.<\/p>\n

[4] \u201cHouzz Introduces Visual Match, Making it Even Easier to Discover and Buy Products on Houzz\u201d. Houzz, September 14, 2016. https:\/\/blog.houzz.com\/houzz-introduces-visual-match-making-it-even, accessed September 2016.<\/p>\n

[5] \u201cFind furniture that suits your style with Houzz\u2019s new visual match tool.\u201d Digital Trends, September 14, 2016. https:\/\/www.digitaltrends.com\/home\/houzz-visual-match, accessed September 2016.<\/p>\n

[6] Image source: https:\/\/www.houzz.com\/photo\/131141930-seminary-road-traditional-kitchen-denver<\/p>\n

[7] \u201cA new ARKit app from Houzz brings 500,000 objects to moveable life\u201d, Techcrunch, September 19, 2017. https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2017\/09\/19\/a-new-arkit-app-from-houzz-brings-500000-objects-to-moveable-life, accessed September 2017.<\/p>\n

[8] Image source: https:\/\/www.houzz.com\/photo\/21475570-sliding-door-sliding-panels-woven-woods-farmhouse-living-room-oklahoma-city<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the past decade, machine learning has profoundly disrupted online ecommerce shopping experience. It enables ecommerce businesses to create a more personalized customer experience by constantly training and refining their consumer datasets, leading to better conversion rates overall. However, for a business model like Houzz, it faced some unique challenges. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11435,"featured_media":36013,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","categories":[4919],"class_list":["post-36012","hck-submission","type-hck-submission","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-machinelearning","hck-taxonomy-organization-houzz","hck-taxonomy-industry-consumer-products","hck-taxonomy-country-united-states"],"connected_submission_link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/assignment\/rc-tom-challenge-2018\/","yoast_head":"\nHouzz Leverage Deep Learning to Level Up its Game in Online Marketplace - Technology and Operations Management<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/houzz-leverage-deep-learning-to-level-up-its-game-in-online-marketplace\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Houzz Leverage Deep Learning to Level Up its Game in Online Marketplace - Technology and Operations Management\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Over the past decade, machine learning has profoundly disrupted online ecommerce shopping experience. It enables ecommerce businesses to create a more personalized customer experience by constantly training and refining their consumer datasets, leading to better conversion rates overall. However, for a business model like Houzz, it faced some unique challenges.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/houzz-leverage-deep-learning-to-level-up-its-game-in-online-marketplace\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Technology and Operations Management\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-11-14T01:00:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/11\/Screen-Shot-2018-11-13-at-1.39.01-PM.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1942\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1530\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/d3.harvard.edu\\\/platform-rctom\\\/submission\\\/houzz-leverage-deep-learning-to-level-up-its-game-in-online-marketplace\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/d3.harvard.edu\\\/platform-rctom\\\/submission\\\/houzz-leverage-deep-learning-to-level-up-its-game-in-online-marketplace\\\/\",\"name\":\"Houzz Leverage Deep Learning to Level Up its Game in Online Marketplace - Technology and Operations Management\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/d3.harvard.edu\\\/platform-rctom\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/d3.harvard.edu\\\/platform-rctom\\\/submission\\\/houzz-leverage-deep-learning-to-level-up-its-game-in-online-marketplace\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/d3.harvard.edu\\\/platform-rctom\\\/submission\\\/houzz-leverage-deep-learning-to-level-up-its-game-in-online-marketplace\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/d3.harvard.edu\\\/platform-rctom\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/sites\\\/4\\\/2018\\\/11\\\/Screen-Shot-2018-11-13-at-1.39.01-PM.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-11-14T00:59:24+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-11-14T01:00:01+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/d3.harvard.edu\\\/platform-rctom\\\/submission\\\/houzz-leverage-deep-learning-to-level-up-its-game-in-online-marketplace\\\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/d3.harvard.edu\\\/platform-rctom\\\/submission\\\/houzz-leverage-deep-learning-to-level-up-its-game-in-online-marketplace\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/d3.harvard.edu\\\/platform-rctom\\\/submission\\\/houzz-leverage-deep-learning-to-level-up-its-game-in-online-marketplace\\\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/d3.harvard.edu\\\/platform-rctom\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/sites\\\/4\\\/2018\\\/11\\\/Screen-Shot-2018-11-13-at-1.39.01-PM.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/d3.harvard.edu\\\/platform-rctom\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/sites\\\/4\\\/2018\\\/11\\\/Screen-Shot-2018-11-13-at-1.39.01-PM.png\",\"width\":1942,\"height\":1530},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/d3.harvard.edu\\\/platform-rctom\\\/submission\\\/houzz-leverage-deep-learning-to-level-up-its-game-in-online-marketplace\\\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/d3.harvard.edu\\\/platform-rctom\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Submissions\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/d3.harvard.edu\\\/platform-rctom\\\/submission\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":3,\"name\":\"Houzz Leverage Deep Learning to Level Up its Game in Online Marketplace\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/d3.harvard.edu\\\/platform-rctom\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/d3.harvard.edu\\\/platform-rctom\\\/\",\"name\":\"Technology and Operations Management\",\"description\":\"MBA Student Perspectives\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"性视界Action\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/d3.harvard.edu\\\/platform-rctom\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Houzz Leverage Deep Learning to Level Up its Game in Online Marketplace - Technology and Operations Management","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/houzz-leverage-deep-learning-to-level-up-its-game-in-online-marketplace\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Houzz Leverage Deep Learning to Level Up its Game in Online Marketplace - Technology and Operations Management","og_description":"Over the past decade, machine learning has profoundly disrupted online ecommerce shopping experience. It enables ecommerce businesses to create a more personalized customer experience by constantly training and refining their consumer datasets, leading to better conversion rates overall. However, for a business model like Houzz, it faced some unique challenges.","og_url":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/houzz-leverage-deep-learning-to-level-up-its-game-in-online-marketplace\/","og_site_name":"Technology and Operations Management","article_modified_time":"2018-11-14T01:00:01+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1942,"height":1530,"url":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/11\/Screen-Shot-2018-11-13-at-1.39.01-PM.png","type":"image\/png"}],"twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/houzz-leverage-deep-learning-to-level-up-its-game-in-online-marketplace\/","url":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/houzz-leverage-deep-learning-to-level-up-its-game-in-online-marketplace\/","name":"Houzz Leverage Deep Learning to Level Up its Game in Online Marketplace - Technology and Operations Management","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/houzz-leverage-deep-learning-to-level-up-its-game-in-online-marketplace\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/houzz-leverage-deep-learning-to-level-up-its-game-in-online-marketplace\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/11\/Screen-Shot-2018-11-13-at-1.39.01-PM.png","datePublished":"2018-11-14T00:59:24+00:00","dateModified":"2018-11-14T01:00:01+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/houzz-leverage-deep-learning-to-level-up-its-game-in-online-marketplace\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/houzz-leverage-deep-learning-to-level-up-its-game-in-online-marketplace\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/houzz-leverage-deep-learning-to-level-up-its-game-in-online-marketplace\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/11\/Screen-Shot-2018-11-13-at-1.39.01-PM.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/11\/Screen-Shot-2018-11-13-at-1.39.01-PM.png","width":1942,"height":1530},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/houzz-leverage-deep-learning-to-level-up-its-game-in-online-marketplace\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Submissions","item":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Houzz Leverage Deep Learning to Level Up its Game in Online Marketplace"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/#website","url":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/","name":"Technology and Operations Management","description":"MBA Student Perspectives","potentialAction":[{"@type":"性视界Action","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hck-submission\/36012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hck-submission"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/hck-submission"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11435"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hck-submission\/36012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}