The company partnered with eDAO, a Polygon-incubated firm, to launch the metaverse offering, which it is calling Flipverse. The offering is in the pilot stage and aimed to garner interest during the festive season in October.
On Flipverse, which goes live on Flipkart’s Android app on 17 October, the company is offering gamified, interactive, and immersive experiences for consumers where they will be able to collect the company’s loyalty points called Supercoins, as well as digital collectibles from partner brands as they make purchases. Flipverse also features several casual games.
The company announced that a range of brands including Puma, Noise, Nivea, Lavie, Tokyo Talkies, Campus, VIP, Ajmal Perfumes, and Himalaya are partnering to set up experience theatres on Flipverse. The company’s executives acknowledged that its Web3 offerings are at an experimental stage, but they said they are confident that it has legs to eventually become a critical part of Flipkart’s future.
Flipkart and its chief rival in India, Amazon, are increasingly broadening their offerings to reach new customers in the South Asian market and retain a loyal base. Amazon launched a QVC-style livestream shopping in India in late September, bringing an army of more than 150 creators to host livestreams and plug products in the videos.
Polygon representatives notice that firms have just begun to scratch the surface of what’s possible in the metaverse. As they see it, combining top brands with Flipkart’s ecommerce expertise in a virtual environment can revolutionise online retail. Flipverse wants to be a vibrant, visible expression of the metaverse.
The broader partnership with Flipkart is Polygon’s latest move in an attempt to attract large brands. The Ethereum scaling platform has partnered with several firms including Stripe, Meta, and Starbucks in recent months. Flipverse isn’t Flipkart’s first foray into Web3, however. The company partnered with Carl Pei’s Nothing earlier this year to give exclusive NFTs to those purchasing the smartphone from the platform.
Back in April Flipkart bought ecommerce enabler ANS Commerce in a deal expected to strengthen its ecommerce ecosystem. Post the acquisition ANS Commerce continued to operate as an independent business under its existing leadership team.
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