Search will always be an important way of finding products when I know what I want.  For instance, if I know that I need a manual bilge pump (a recent purchase), I will go to either a search engine or use the search function at an online marine supplies site such as WestMarine or LandfallNavigation (both in need of significant improvement).  But I would never spend any time simply poking around these sites just to “discover” a product that I didn’t know I needed until the second I saw it.  Yet, I would happily follow a sailing tumblr that provided great sailing tips or images and might occasionally or even frequently include neat new products.  Depending on the voice or quality of selection, I would do this even if the tumblr belonged to a vendor!

I am thinking of this as the unbundling of discovery from commerce.  There are sites as svpply and services such as OpenSky that are explicitly targeting this unbundling.  More playful approaches such as Polyvore and Pinterest are also part of this trend.  Embracing this will require a fair bit of rethinking on part of the brands and commerce sites that have been historically protective of their intellectual property.  For instance, Victoria’s Secret recently asked a small service to stop using the VS images.  The service allowed browsing by which supermodel was wearing the clothes instead of by type of clothes.  That would seem to be an excellent unbundled discovery opportunity.