Indian e-commerce large Flipkart launches metaverse procuring expertise • TechCrunch

Flipkart has launched a metaverse providing for shoppers to find and store new merchandise, the newest guess from the Indian e-commerce large 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 dwell on Flipkart’s Android app Monday, the corporate is providing “gamified, interactive and immersive” experiences for shoppers the place they may be capable of gather 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 concept is to have hundreds of thousands of customers expertise Flipverse and open the doorways to the way forward for procuring,” 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 grow to be a vital a part of Flipkart’s future.

Flipkart and its chief rival in India, Amazon, are more and more broadening their choices to achieve new prospects within the South Asian market and retain loyal base. Amazon launched a QVC-style livestream procuring in India late final month, bringing a military of greater than 150 creators to host livestreams and plug merchandise within the movies.

“Whereas now we have solely simply begun to scratch the floor of what’s doable within the metaverse, we see e-commerce as one of many killer use instances. 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 might 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 to draw massive manufacturers. The Ethereum scaling platform has partnered with various companies 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 12 months to present unique NFTs to these buying the smartphone from the platform.

“The longer term development of e-commerce might be influenced by the immersive applied sciences of at present, and Metaverse is likely one of the vital revolutions on this enviornment 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 progressive industries like e-commerce and improve the shopper expertise whereas delivering a gamified and an immersive procuring expertise, particularly in mild of the adoption of the metaverse and web3 platforms by a number of manufacturers in India. By offering prospects with entry to their most popular manufacturers, gives, SuperCoins, and digital collectibles, we’re aiming to enhance their procuring experiences in a digital and immersive setting.”

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