Alphabet’s Google launched Google Shopping in India on Thursday. And with it, some exclusive features too.
Google Shopping can be accessed through a new shopping tab within Google Search and using Google Lens, the latter being an image recognition app which allows users to photograph products to get more information about them. The shopping platform is already available in 35 countries, but India is the first one in the world to get a separate shopping homepage on Google. Also, India’s shoppers would have the choice to search for products in English and Hindi on the shopping app. Google Shopping will list products from Amazon, Flipkart and other retailers instead of selling any itself (as reported by CNN, citing a company spokesperson).
Google’s Merchant Center, where retailers can upload product details, will be available in Hindi (in addition to English) in India –the first nation to have an alternative language option on the particular webpage.
"More than 40 million Indians are coming online every year, and search is an integral part of their online journey," Surojit Chatterjee, Google's vice president for product management, said in a statement. As of now, Walmart subsidiary Flipkart accounts for an estimated 40% of India's e-commerce market, while Amazon has about 32% share, as revealed by some reports.