How Faber CNK Stone uses AI visual search to help customers find the right stone

When customers are looking for natural stone, they don't always know the product name. They may have a photo of an existing patio. A screenshot from Pinterest. A picture from Instagram. A sample photographed at a job site. Or a client's inspiration image.

The problem is simple:  They know what the stone looks like — but they don't know what it's called.

For Faber CNK Stone, a wholesale supplier of premium natural stone, pavers, pool coping, mosaics and other hardscape materials, this creates a natural opportunity for visual product search. Faber partnered with ImageFlow-ai to give customers a new way to search its product catalog:

Upload a photo → Find visually similar products → Identify the right material → Contact Faber to confirm availability and pricing.

Faber CNK Stone is a wholesale supplier of natural stone and hardscape materials serving customers across Texas and beyond.

Its product offering includes travertine and marble pavers, pool coping, pool tiles, mosaics, ledger panels, wall products and other materials for residential and commercial projects.

Faber's catalog includes products in a wide range of colors, textures, finishes and patterns — making visual discovery particularly valuable for customers who may recognize a material by appearance but not by product name.

The company operates warehouse locations serving major Texas markets including Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio and the Fort Worth area, with additional operations in Tennessee.

What if the customer knows what they want — but doesn't know what it's called?

Natural stone is inherently visual. Two products may have similar names but look very different. Conversely, products with different names can have similar colors, textures or visual characteristics.

For a contractor or designer, identifying a particular stone from a photograph can mean searching through product pages, browsing catalogs, contacting a supplier or visiting a showroom. For a homeowner, it can be even harder.

A customer might send Faber a photo and simply ask:

“Do you have something like this?”

Traditional keyword search isn't designed for that question.

The customer may not know the name of the stone, the material type, the collection, the finish or the SKU. Faber needed a simpler way to bridge the gap between what the customer sees and what Faber sells

Search the Faber catalog by photo

With ImageFlow-ai, Faber added a visual product search experience called the Stone Match Finder. Instead of starting with a keyword, customers can start with an image.

They can upload:

• A photo of an existing patio or pool deck
• A jobsite photograph
• A customer's inspiration image
• A Pinterest or Instagram screenshot
• A supplier catalog image
• A photograph of a physical stone sample
• A photo taken on a phone

The system analyzes the image and compares it with Faber's product catalog. ImageFlow evaluates visual characteristics such as color, tone, texture and finish and returns the closest products available in the catalog.

1. Upload a photo

The customer starts with an image instead of a product name.

A clear close-up photograph generally provides the best results, but customers can also start with jobsite photos, screenshots or other reference images.

2. AI analyzes the image

ImageFlow analyzes the visual characteristics of the image and compares them with products in Faber's catalog. The customer doesn't need to know the technical name of the material.

3. See ranked product matches

The customer receives visually similar products from Faber's catalog, with a match percentage that helps them compare the results. Instead of manually browsing hundreds of product images, customers can quickly narrow their options.

4. Move from discovery to purchase

Once customers find a likely match, they can continue to Faber's product and inquiry experience. If they're still unsure, Faber's customer service team can help confirm the closest product, availability and pricing.

This is the fundamental difference between generic image search and visual product search.

A customer doesn't necessarily want to know what something looks like. They want to know what they can buy.

ImageFlow searches against Faber's own catalog, allowing the visual search experience to connect an inspiration image to actual products offered by Faber. That makes visual search particularly valuable for a business with a large, visually differentiated product catalog.

The Stone Match Finder isn't limited to traditional online shopping. It fits naturally into the way contractors, designers and homeowners already work.

Matching an existing installation

A contractor needs to extend an existing patio or replace damaged pool coping. Instead of trying to identify the material by name, they can photograph the existing stone and use the image to find the closest products in Faber's catalog.

Working from an inspiration photo

A homeowner sends a contractor an image from Pinterest or Instagram. The contractor can upload the image and quickly identify visually similar products that Faber carries.

Helping a client choose materials

A designer can use a reference image as the starting point for a conversation with a client and quickly find products with a similar appearance.

Finding alternatives

If the exact material isn't available, visual matching can help surface similar products that may provide a suitable alternative.

Shortening the path to a quote

Instead of spending time trying to identify a product manually, the customer can start with a photo, review potential matches and then contact Faber with a much more specific request.

Natural stone is one of the clearest use cases for AI visual product search.

A stone's appearance can depend on:

• Color
• Veining
• Texture
• Pattern
• Finish
• Surface variation
• Material
• Size and format

And natural materials introduce another complication: no two pieces are necessarily identical. For that reason, Faber positions the Stone Match Finder as a way to find the closest products in its inventory, rather than promising that an image match is guaranteed to be the exact same individual stone.

Customers can then request a physical sample when exact color and vein confirmation is required.

One of the most important aspects of the implementation is that the search experience is connected to Faber's own product catalog.

Faber's catalog includes multiple natural-stone categories and a broad selection of pavers, mosaics and related products.

For example, its paver collection includes numerous travertine products such as Ivory, Silver, Dark Walnut, Light Walnut, Nuance, Noce, Leonardo, Country Classic and Autumn.

Its mosaic collection includes dozens of products across materials such as marble, travertine, limestone and basalt, with different finishes and formats.

This breadth is exactly where visual search can provide value. The larger and more visually diverse the catalog becomes, the harder it can be for customers to know where to start. Visual search gives them another starting point.

No account. No complicated search. Just upload a photo.

Faber's Stone Match Finder is designed to remove friction from the first step of product discovery. Customers can use the tool for free, without creating an account, and receive results in seconds. That makes visual search useful even when the customer doesn't yet know exactly what they're looking for.

Instead of:

Search → Browse → Filter → Compare → Ask

the experience becomes:

Photo → Match → Explore → Contact

Visual search turns product identification into product discovery

For a catalog business, getting a customer to the right product is only part of the challenge. The customer also needs a reason to continue the conversation. Faber's visual search experience creates a natural bridge between the customer's inspiration image and a real product inquiry.

When a customer finds a likely match, they can move from:

“I like this stone.” to “Is this the product you carry?” and ultimately “Can I get pricing and availability?”

That is where visual search becomes more than a search feature. It becomes a sales-enablement tool.

A new entry point into Faber's product catalog

By adding AI-powered visual search, Faber CNK Stone gives contractors, designers and homeowners another way to discover its products. Instead of requiring customers to identify a stone before searching for it, Faber lets them start with the thing they already have:

a photo.

The result is a simpler path from inspiration to product discovery — and from product discovery to a conversation with the Faber team.