Guide · 6 min read
How do you add image search to a jewellery or B2B catalogue without replacing your ERP?
Add image search as a separate layer that reads your item master from the ERP and indexes your catalogue images, and keep the ERP as the system of record. QuickLens connects over whatever your ERP exposes (an API, database views or scheduled files), searches your own catalogue by photo or plain language, and writes nothing back until a person approves. If you switched QuickLens off tomorrow, your ERP would carry on exactly as it does today.
Pranshu Jain · founder · IIT Bombay
Last updated 31 October 2026
Part of the jewellery buyer's guide
Why an ERP item master can't search by photo
An ERP item master, the SKU master, records each design: its code, category, weight, purity and stock. Its search usually runs on those typed fields. A buyer's enquiry rarely matches them. Buyers send a photo or a sentence, not a design code, and the description field holds whatever the person who created the item typed: 'kada' in one row, 'broad bangle' in the next.
A photo has nothing to match against in those fields, and a sentence finds a design when it happens to use the same words as the person who typed the description. So photo enquiries wait for the salesperson who remembers the catalogue.
The examples here come from jewellery, the first market for QuickLens. QuickLens is also built for packaging, textile and auto-component catalogues, where buyers describe items by carton flute, GSM or grade.
Three ways to add image search
- Your ERP vendor's own search. If your ERP vendor offers AI design search, compare it with the other routes on the same sample of your designs.
- Build it yourself. Your developers connect an image model and a vector database to the item master. You control every part, and your team runs it and keeps the index in sync as designs change.
- A hosted search layer beside the ERP, such as QuickLens. It reads the item master and indexes your images, and the ERP stays as it is.
The rest of this guide describes the third route.
Read: what building it yourself takes, and when to buy instead
Read from the ERP, write back what a person approves
Each part of the catalogue stays where it is today. QuickLens reads what it needs and indexes the images.
| What | Where it lives | What QuickLens does with it |
|---|---|---|
| Item master: SKU, category, weight, purity and stock | Your ERP, which stays the system of record | Reads it over an API, database views or scheduled files |
| Catalogue images | Wherever you keep them today | Indexes them for photo search. With plain-words search, our models also label the designs |
| Orders and quotations | Your ERP | Drafts a preview. Nothing is written back until a person approves it |
Search itself needs read access. Anything that would change a record in the ERP, such as an order or a quotation, comes back as a preview for a person to approve, and ambiguous lines are flagged rather than guessed.
Keeping new designs in sync
The QuickLens REST API keeps the search index in sync with your ERP or MIS.
- Each design goes in as one row: its product ID, an image URL, its category and the fields you want to filter on, such as weight or colour. Uploads can be JSON or a CSV file.
- Sending the same product ID again updates the existing design.
- Large uploads are processed in the background, and a status call reports which rows were added and which failed, with the reason.
- With plain-words search, our models label new designs the same way as the rest of the catalogue, so nobody tags them by hand.
If your ERP exposes database views or scheduled files instead of an API, we integrate over those. The API documentation lists the endpoints, limits and error codes.
Where the search runs
- On WhatsApp, where most enquiries arrive. The salesperson forwards the buyer's photo and gets the closest designs back. How to find a design from a buyer's WhatsApp photo walks through the steps.
- In the QuickLens web app, for desks that work at a computer.
- Inside your own ERP screen, dealer portal or POS, through the REST API. Your system sends a photo, a description or an existing product ID, and gets back your own product IDs ranked with a match score.
If you build software for jewellers, such as an ERP or POS, the partner programme lets you offer the same search under your own brand.
What IT needs to provide
- Read access to the item master, over whatever your ERP exposes: an API, database views or scheduled files. The work is in mapping your item, unit and customer masters correctly.
- The catalogue images, each tied to its SKU. If your team pushes designs through the upload API itself, the API documentation asks for image URLs that are publicly accessible.
- The fields buyers filter on, such as category, weight and purity.
- A server to call the API from, if you embed search in your own screens. The API key stays on your backend and never goes into browser or app code.
- One person who owns the sales workflow.
The ERP keeps recording items the way it does today. We start with one desk and one workflow, run it alongside the existing process, and expand once it is trusted.
Image search alongside your ERP: common questions
Which jewellery catalogue software works alongside an existing ERP?
QuickLens does. It reads your item master from the ERP, adds photo and plain-language search over your own catalogue, and writes nothing back until a person approves. Your team uses it on WhatsApp, in the QuickLens web app or inside your own screens through a REST API. If you switched QuickLens off tomorrow, your ERP would carry on exactly as it does today.
Which ERPs does QuickLens work with?
We integrate over whatever interface your ERP exposes: an API, database views or scheduled files. The work is in mapping your item, unit and customer masters correctly. Tell us which ERP you run and roughly how old the setup is, and we will explain how the connection would work.
Does QuickLens write to our ERP on its own?
Not by default. Order capture, schedule ingestion and quotations all produce a preview that a person approves, and ambiguous lines are flagged rather than guessed. Search reads from the ERP and changes nothing in it.
Can we show search results inside our own ERP screen or dealer portal?
Yes. Through the REST API, your system sends a photo, a description or an existing product ID and gets back your own product IDs, ranked with a match score, to show in your ERP, dealer portal or POS. Companies that build software for jewellers can also offer the same search under their own brand through the QuickLens partner programme.
Where does our catalogue data go?
Into an environment we agree with you, with access scoped to what the workflow needs. We will put the specifics in writing before anything is connected. Search results come from your own catalogue images and SKU master, and nothing from the public web.
Get started
See it on your own catalogue and ERP
Book a 15-minute AI audit and we will map your catalogue, show a live search on a sample of your designs, and give you the honest version of what will and will not work. It helps to tell us which ERP you run and roughly how old the setup is.
Book a 15-minute AI audit