No App only plans, Flipkart launches social shopping with ‘Ping’

Rubbishing media reports about Flipkart going app only, its Chief Product Officer Punit Soni said today, “We are comprehensively focused on mobile and mobile centric experiences. The future of communication is not a tethered clunky box wired to a power socket. However, there are no plans of going app only.”

The e-commerce major launched ‘Ping’ - a drag and drop chat option to share product details with fellow Flipkart app users. Once can share their shopping experience using text, photo and emoticons in real time.

“This will fundamentally change the way Flipkart works. A third party app often doesn’t allow such deep integration. ‘Ping’ aims to transform online shopping by allowing users to talk to each other real time in order to make decisions and decide on what to buy”, Soni said.

Peeyush Ranjan, CTO and Head of Engineering, Flipkart said, “Ping has been optimized for efficient results even on slow 2G networks. It will also support android wearables where user can read and reply to messages from their android watches. This is happening right here in India with Indians. This is the real Make in India for you.”

Flipkart’s new ‘homegrown’ feature has been in the works for 3-4 months. Ping will be available to customers through an invite only model in the first phase. Selected users would get invites from Flipkart, and can send up to 10 invites. However one can register on the app to enable the chat feature.

In response to Snapdeal Chief Product Officer Anand Chandrasekaran’s recent comments on Flipkart’s Image Search option and that ‘the stakes are very high for something to be on Snapdeal’, Soni smiles pleasantly. “It’s time we rise above taking such digs at each other. Anand is a great guy. I’m more than willing to share a drink with him and smooth it out”, he says.