May 9, 2025
3 minute read
Color shapes personal identity
Color is a key element in defining your personal style. It can reflect an individual's personality, mood, and even aspirations. Bright and bold colors might express confidence and extroversion, while softer, neutral tones might suggest a more reserved or minimalist form of self expression.
Even if you are not consciously aware of it, color has enormous influence over your purchasing decisions.
Not just any Blue, "Cerulean Blue"
If you've ever painted a house, you know the importance of a specific color. Here's an experiment: take a casual stroll down the paint isle at your local home improvement store and look for blue paint. You'll quickly realize there're hundreds of specific shades of blue, so ultimately, you have to make a decision, a precise one. You'll surely have your own specific preference for blue paint, so how about other things?
Think fashion, cosmetics, home decor, art. In consumer products, color is always on the table. Whether you're a fashionable person or not, chances are you have colors you prefer to wear and colors you'll avoid at all cost!
In ecommerce, there is no sense of feel, smell, or sound, so the importance of visual attributes such as color are magnified.
So... you may be thinking, if stores supplied more vibrant colorful products, then sales will go up!!
Wrong. Often the most popular and sought after colors are subtle in their expressions:
What we traditionally think of as our favorite colors may not even be recognized as a distinct hue. As a shopper, you may be drawn to off-whites, earthy tones, and charcoal tones. The expression "Orange is the new Black" is in some ways a testament to how well known it is that people love to wear the color black!
So… how do shoppers find their favorite colors?
Shoppers have long been frustrated by the inability to easily find their favorite colors. This is because traditional color filters are incapable of surfacing nuanced colors:
Blue
Green
Yellow
Orange
Red
Purple
Pink
Black
White
It's an unsorted mess!
When you filter blue, you're hit with every shade of blue you can imagine, and in no particular order. Finding an ice blue or navy blue can require combing through hundreds of blue products to find that one specific shade.
It's time we reinvent the color filter
Shoppers need the ability to find their favorite colors and find them fast. We're talking speed of thought fast. The black text word list is too slow, so let's get rid of it!
Blue
Green
Yellow
Orange
Red
Purple
Pink
Black
White
Color is visual
Color is its own visual language that can never be translated into words. It has to be seen to be understood. There aren't enough descriptive color names on the planet to truly capture the full spectrum of human vision.
Hoppn Labs has patented a whole new way to search products by color using a color wheel, calling it the Infinite Color Search.
And it works like magic.
Hoppn's Infinite Color Search algorithm is fundamentally different from traditional color filters. Rather than filtering out colors, it sorts them. For instance, when you search a specific shade of white, you see the most accurate matches at the top. But as you scroll through the entire catalogue, you will eventually reach black.
Shoppers deserve better
Hoppn offers an Infinite Color Search plugin for Shopify stores. You can have Hoppn's patented color search on your website within minutes. No coding involved.
Sources
Q&A recap
Why does color matter so much in ecommerce?
In online shopping, there’s no sense of touch, smell, or sound. So visual elements like color become critical. Studies show 93% of product choices are influenced by color, and 85% of shoppers say it’s the top factor in buying decisions. That’s why tools like Hoppn’s Infinite Color Search give retailers a competitive edge by letting shoppers discover products through color itself, not vague words.
Can we really trust people’s descriptions of color?
Not reliably. One shopper might type “sky blue,” another “teal,” and another “cerulean” — but they’re often talking about the same shade. Traditional keyword search can’t bridge that gap. Infinite Color Search by Hoppn solves this by matching colors visually, so the system always understands what shade the shopper really means.
What’s wrong with traditional color filters on ecommerce sites?
Most stores group every “blue” or “green” product together, without ordering or nuance. That forces shoppers to scroll endlessly through irrelevant shades. Hoppn’s Infinite Color Search changes this by ranking results by closest match first, then gradually moving outward, so the perfect shade appears instantly.
How does Infinite Color Search improve the customer experience?
Instead of relying on words, Hoppn’s Infinite Color Search lets shoppers pick a color directly and see products sorted by precision. Whether it’s a rug, a dress, or wall art, the exact color shows up first. This makes discovery faster and frustration-free.
Who benefits most from using Infinite Color Search?
Shoppers save time by instantly finding the exact product they want, and Shopify merchants using Hoppn see higher engagement and conversion rates. The plugin is easy to install (no coding required) so retailers can offer advanced color discovery with a simple flip of a switch.
