Walmart-backed Flipkart turns to videos and livestream to woo Indian online shoppers - The Economic Times
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% 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 colors 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.”
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