E-commerce marketplace Flipkart has enabled three new languages on its platform - Tamil, Telugu and Kannada. This launch, the company says, aims to reduce access barriers to e-commerce for native language speakers.
Following the launch of Hindi interface last year, the new regional languages interface have been built on Flipkart’s ‘Localization and Translation Platform’ to help customers access e-commerce in their local language.
According to industry reports, Indian language internet users are expected to account for nearly 75% of India’s internet user base by 2021.
This growing base of language users, primarily from smaller towns, makes it extremely important to enable e-commerce in regional languages to offer a more personalised experience.
“As southern states account for a significant proportion of Flipkart’s growing user base coupled with a higher adoption rate of native language script, regional language interfaces will help make e-commerce more inclusive,” Flipkart said in a statement.
The introduction of these new languages, Flipkart says, came after an ethnographic study was conducted over several months with participants across cities including Salem, Visakhapatnam and Mysore to gather insights about consumers’ distinctive language behaviour across these regions and brought forward interesting insights to be implemented. This included a large-scale translation of over 5.4 million words across product specifications, banners and payment pages etc., in the three languages.
“In the past year, we have introduced multiple solutions under Voice, Video and Vernacular to increase ecommerce adoption for millions of consumers. We truly believe that language, if solved well, can be an opportunity rather than a barrier to reach millions of consumers who have been underserved. As a homegrown e-commerce marketplace, we understand India and its diversity in a more nuanced way and are building products that have the potential to bring a long-term change. The introduction of Tamil, Telugu and Kannada interfaces, in addition to Hindi & English, is a meaningful step in that direction in line with our mission to democratize ecommerce in India,” Kalyan Krishnamurthy, Chief Executive Officer of Flipkart Group, said in a statement.
Jeyandran Venugopal, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Flipkart added that nearly 58% of Flipkart’s user base comes from tier-II cities.