Flipkart has launched a metaverse providing for customers to extra interactively uncover and store new merchandise, the most recent guess from the Indian e-commerce big because it experiments with web3 choices to supercharge its buyer expertise.
The Walmart-backed Bengaluru-headquartered agency has partnered with eDAO, a Polygon-incubated agency, to launch the metaverse providing, which it’s calling Flipverse. The providing is within the pilot stage and aimed to garner curiosity through the festive season this month.
On Flipverse, which fits stay on Flipkart’s Android app Monday, the corporate is providing “gamified, interactive and immersive” experiences for customers the place they may be capable to acquire the corporate’s loyalty factors — Supercoins — in addition to digital collectibles from associate manufacturers as they make purchases.
At a briefing Monday, Flipkart mentioned “a variety of manufacturers” together with Puma, Noise, Nivea, Lavie, Tokyo Talkies, Campus, VIP, Ajmal Perfumes and Himalaya are partnering to arrange expertise theaters on Flipverse.
“The thought is to have tens of millions of customers expertise Flipverse and open the doorways to the way forward for buying,” the corporate mentioned. The corporate’s executives acknowledged that its web3 choices are at an experimental stage, however they mentioned they’re assured that it has legs to finally change into a essential a part of Flipkart’s future.
“15 years in the past, we had been the primary Indian firm to launch internet 2.0-based commerce. And I really feel in the present day we’re the primary firm to launch internet 3.0 commerce,” mentioned a Flipkart govt on the briefing.
A slide from Flipkart’s presentation (Picture credit: Flipkart)
Flipkart and its chief rival in India, Amazon, are more and more broadening their choices to achieve new clients within the South Asian market and retain loyal base. Amazon launched a QVC-style livestream buying in India late final month, bringing a military of greater than 150 creators to host livestreams and plug merchandise within the movies.
“Whereas we’ve solely simply begun to scratch the floor of what’s doable within the metaverse, we see e-commerce as one of many killer use circumstances. Combining prime manufacturers with Flipkart’s e-commerce experience in a digital setting stands to revolutionize on-line retail as we all know it. Flipverse will likely be a vibrant, seen expression of the metaverse, and I’m proud that this activation is going down on Polygon,” mentioned Sandeep Nailwal, co-founder of Polygon, in a press release.
The broader partnership with Flipkart is Polygon’s newest win because it aggressively attracts giant manufacturers. The Ethereum scaling platform has partnered with quite a few corporations together with Stripe, Meta and Starbucks in latest months.
Flipverse isn’t Flipkart’s first foray into web3. The corporate partnered with Carl Pei’s Nothing earlier this yr to present unique NFTs to these buying the smartphone from the platform.
“The longer term progress of e-commerce will likely be influenced by the immersive applied sciences of in the present day, and Metaverse is likely one of the important revolutions on this area with immense potential,” mentioned Naren Ravula, VP and Head of Product Technique and Deployment at Flipkart Labs, mentioned in a press release.
“The launch of Flipverse will proceed to have an effect on revolutionary industries like e-commerce and improve the client expertise whereas delivering a gamified and an immersive buying expertise, particularly in gentle of the adoption of the metaverse and web3 platforms by a number of manufacturers in India. By offering clients with entry to their most popular manufacturers, gives, SuperCoins, and digital collectibles, we’re aiming to enhance their buying experiences in a digital and immersive setting.”
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