Flipkart shuts image search, social shopping tool Ping
BENGALURU: Flipkart is replacing a social shopping feature that allowed customers to reach out to friends and family on its mobile app with one that now allows interaction between sellers and customers.
The decision to shut down Ping, the social chat as well as another link that allowed customers to search through images, less than year after both features were launched is due largely to low customer interest in both products said a spokesman for the company.
After 25th June, 2016 users will not be able to chat with their friends or family on Ping but will be able to browse through their existing chats on the app,” according to a company statement. “Customers will continue to be able to share any messages or products through any social media platform of their choice,”
Ping and the image search button were launched as part of a major drive towards product innovation, which was led by the Bengaluru-based company’s former chief product officer Punit Soni. Soni, a former Google employee quit Flipkart in April to pursue new opportunities in Silicon Valley. “We will, keeping in mind the consumer preference, discontinue Image Search, but will continue to support the ” Visually Similar” feature on the platform to make shopping easy and seamless,” said a Flipkart spokesman.
As a replacement for Ping, Flipkart said it has launched a pilot for ‘user to seller’ chat and will soon begin ‘user to customer care’ chat on its platform. The new feature will help users to chat with the sellers about their product related queries, prior to even buying the final product.
Along with the user-seller chat, Flipkart will also allow its users to interact with the customer care executives on a real-time basis, for any order, returns or refund related issue. The pilot for this project will begin by the end of July.
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