Flipkart builds Snap's Camera Kit into its app to offer users AR experience

Snap's AR technology coupled with Flipkart's understanding of its 350 million customer base will help build an immersive e-commerce experience for Indian users

E-commerce giant Flipkart has formed a partnership with US-based camera and social media company Snap Inc to expand its augmented reality (AR)-led e-commerce experience for millions of its customers across the country. Announced on the sidelines of ‘Snap in India’, this is Snap’s first collaboration with an e-commerce platform in India which will play a pivotal role in enhancing the journey of millions of existing and new-to-e-commerce customers.

Under this partnership, Flipkart will integrate Snap’s Camera Kit to its app, enabling customers to virtually try on products or view them in their physical world to make an informed purchase. While Flipkart already boasts of an AR-enabled camera, the integration of Snap’s Camera Kit will enhance its capabilities to offer consumers an opportunity to view a wider range of products. This would be across categories such as fashion, wearable technologies and more in the next few months in a more immersive manner.

Jeyandran Venugopal, chief product and technology officer at Flipkart said the e-commerce landscape in India is changing rapidly with millions of new customers from all geographies looking for richer experiences online. He said the firm is taking a lead on this with its augmented reality enabled app and are taking this vision ahead in partnership with Snap Inc, a global leader in AR technologies.

“This partnership will herald a new era in the e-commerce industry, enabling easy access for customers while driving growth for lakhs of our sellers,” said Venugopal. He said there is a new cohort of users that are coming online for the first time and experiencing these e-commerce and other digital platforms.

“One of the big needs for users when buying something online is to really understand how the (product) fits in with their expectations and make the purchase decision,” said Venugopal. “We have already seen AR capabilities being used to aid customers to make informed purchase decisions and have ourselves launched AR capabilities for some verticals.”

The partnership with Snap will help expand Flipkart’s product offerings available with augmented reality experiences through its Camera. Snap has been at the forefront of building an AR future at scale which coupled with Flipkart’s nuanced understanding of its more than 350 million customer base will help build an immersive e-commerce experience for the Indian customers.

Snapchat is built around the camera, which the company said now plays a meaningful role in millions of people’s lives. The firm said it is committed to democratizing augmented reality. This, coupled with Flipkart’s understanding of millions of its customers and its Flipkart Camera will offer unique AR experiences to customers.

Nana Murugesan, Managing Director, International Markets, Snap Inc., said with today’s digital-first consumer and accelerating digital economy, AR-driven experiences such as virtual try-on plays a key role in motivating and converting intent to shop. He said Snap has been focused on making its innovations accessible and impactful both within and beyond its platform. “A robust and diverse partner ecosystem plays a key role in our growth in India,” said Murugesan. “Collaborating with market leaders like Flipkart offers us the opportunity to scale Snap Camera and AR technology and introduce industry-first innovations for our communities.”

Murugesan said that there's an acceleration of the digital economy in India and Snap is doubling down on areas such as AR and e-commerce.

“Our focus is on bringing together digital and physical experiences right through the camera and e-commerce is such a perfect use case for that,” said Murugesan. “Especially with the pandemic, people are looking for things more digitally and are not going out to do things physically as much as they used.”

As e-commerce today is becoming a part of our lives, the companies said there is a growing need to bring real-life purchasing experiences to customers using technologies such as augmented reality. And with customers increasingly shopping on the go and from the comfort of their homes, this enhanced experience will enable customers to be better informed while helping them make an informed purchase.

At the  “Snap in India” event, Snap Co-Founder and CEO Evan Spiegel announced the milestone of reaching 100 million Snapchatters monthly in India. He overviewed the consistent localisation efforts and innovations driven by the Snap team in India.

“We have added culturally relevant content, developed highly active and creative local creator communities, and invested in local products, marketing initiatives, and language support,” said Spiegel. “Following these efforts to bring a localized experience to Indian Snapchatters, we now reach 100 million Snapchatters monthly in India. We will continue to anchor our efforts around celebrating local culture and talent while empowering, growing, and providing resources for our community of Indian creators.”

Snap’s partners have played an instrumental role in developing localised experiences for India. Besides the partnership with Flipkart, Snap is enabling virtual try-ons for Snapchatters, as Sugar Cosmetics and MyGlamm have adopted Snap’s AR shopping beta program to offer virtual beauty and makeup try-on experiences to consumers. Also, Samsung Mobile launched a unique “Fun Mode” feature to bring some of Snap’s AR-powered Lenses to their native camera app, and extended this partnership locally with their “Made in India” M Series smartphones.      

The Snapchat Camera links the digital and physical worlds, bringing together the creativity and utility of computing and the remarkable world around us through the power of Augmented Reality. “Augmented reality is at the core of Snapchat’s offerings in India,” said Bobby Murphy, co-founder and chief technology officer of Snap Inc. “Our efforts to stay culturally relevant and offer unique AR experiences have resonated with 100 million Indian Snapchatters.