After Amazon and Google, Flipkart Joins Localisation Race With Hindi Interface

Flipkart on Tuesday took a giant leap in the ecommerce localisation race by launching a Hindi interface for the users who are more comfortable in using the internet in their native language.

With this launch, Flipkart plans to make its platform more engaging and inclusive for the estimated 200 Mn customers in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. Just like Amazon’s Chatbot, the company has focused on adding more colloquial tone for English phrases and words such as ‘cash on delivery’ and ‘guarantee’.

Filpkart’s Hindi interface is expected to help users understand instructions better, reduce guesswork and make online shopping a seamless experience, said Jeyandran Venugopal, senior vice-president, consumer experience and platform at Flipkart.

“This will also allow the transition of online shopping in English from being a functional experience to elevating it into an emotional experience with the Hindi capability,” he added.

How will Hindi Interface Help Customers?

With the Hindi interface, the user will be able to see all the information in the local language. The new interface would also allow users to search for a product in Hindi. The company has launched the new interface after months of research, understanding and keeping customers’ demands in mind.

Industry research suggests that 90% of new internet users in India are Hindi speakers. It is also revealed that using ecommerce in native language gives them more confidence to make decisions.

Flipkart will be expanding the native language capabilities to a few more Indian languages. The company believes that a multilingual interface will make ecommerce more accessible, familiar and engaging.

The Localisation Of Cyberspace

With India’s fast-growing Internet users, various digital platforms ranging from OTT to ecommerce have sharpened their focus on India. these companies aim to penetrate into the Indian tier 2 and tier 3 cities.

Last month, Amazon India rolled out its Hindi interfaced customer service chatbot to enhance post-ordering customer experience. The feature was designed to help faster resolution of order related problems for Hindi-speaking users. Just like Flipkart, even Amazon has been working on expanding to other India languages to make it more Bharat friendly.

In addition, Amazon has also announced that it is developing a regional language interface for its voice assistant Alexa. Similarly, Google Assistant also comes with various language preferences like Hindi, Marathi, Tamil among others.

Google has also addressed the gap in the availability of content in local languages through its platform Question Hub. The platform aims to get Indian publishers on board to generate relevant content for the native speaking audience.

Snapchat and Twitter have also been trying their luck by localising with regional languages.