Walmart-backed Flipkart turns to videos and livestream to woo Indian online shoppers
NEW DELHI: Flipkart India Pvt., the e-commerce giant owned by Walmart Inc., is using social videos and livestreams to convert young consumers spending a lot of time on their smartphones into loyal customers.
Using videos to showcase and sell products is one of the leading new forays at Flipkart, Neha Agrahari, a senior director at the retailer, said in an interview to Bloomberg News.
While the concept of online retailers using videos to boost sales has been around for years, Flipkart hopes this strategy will give it an edge over rivals like Amazon.com Inc. and Reliance Industries Ltd. in India. The world's most-populous country has about 650 million smartphone users - of whom over 270 million make purchases online, making it the second-largest e-retail market ahead of the US.
About 200 million users engaged with videos on Flipkart while shopping in the first half of 2025, up from 75 million a year ago, data from the retailer showed.
"Users prefer to watch a video and make a decision' when shopping, making video commerce the obvious direction to take, Agrahari said. Two in three Gen-Z users now prefer this format of shopping, with 65 per cent of video and streaming engagement coming from India's smaller cities.
The firm launched video offerings on its app about 18 months ago to promote everything from sunscreen to gadgets. It also features livestreams to answer buyers' questions about products in real-time and let shoppers interact with influencers.
Flipkart's foray into this segment, along with other Indian platforms like SoftBank Group Corp.-backed Meesho, follows a trend in China and other parts of Asia where top retailers routinely invest in promoting items via live videos, hiring influencers to hawk everything from lipstick to protein powders.
Video-led shopping is currently driving sales in fashion, beauty, personal care and home decor categories, Agrahari said, adding that the next move is to include electronics and fitness-related content.
The platform is building physical studios in the Indian cities of Gurugram, Mumbai, and Bengaluru to offer "seamless' shooting and editing experience to its video creators, Agrahari said.
User engagement numbers for daily livestreaming show the strategy is paying off. The number is up 17 times compared to the previous year, according to Agrahari. The surge is boosted by product videos which include clips of users dipping t-shirts in water to see if the colours bleed and using a variety of food in kitchen appliances to test reliability.
The "stress tests' work for livestreams and viewers want to see more, she said. "We don't mind dropping a mobile phone just to prove that it is strong enough.' - Bloomberg
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