Flipkart CTO Peeyush Ranjan said that Ping “has been optimized for efficient results even on slow 2G networks”, making it accessible in parts of India where people don’t have 3G or 4G, or where people predominantly use cheaper smartphones.

According to an emailed statement from Flipkart, the move was prompted by research that indicated that a customer’s identity was strongly related to their mobile number, and that their inability to shop collaboratively was the number one barrier for online shopping.

“However, there is no timeline on shutting down any other format”, Flipkart Chief Product Officer Punit Soni told reporters here. The future of communication is not a tethered clunky box wired to a power socket. The e-commerce major launched “Ping” – a drag and drop chat option to share product details with fellow Flipkart app users. “For online, it happens in isolation where you may share screen shots with friends, asking for their opinion”, he added. “But online shopping till now was an isolating experience which we are trying to change with this new chat feature”, said Punit Soni, chief product officer at Flipkart. As of now, the feature is available as invite only.

With this feature, it looks like the top e-commerce service is bringing in more of a social network feel in its app on Android and iOS.

Flipkart, however, says that none of the web firms in the world are building apps with deep linking technology as its Ping. The app can work on a very low bandwidth and on older OS versions as Android 2.0.

Now, about 70% of its user base is on the mobile and that has opened a plethora of possibilities. With this app, buyers and sellers are allowed to interact with each other with the help of an inbuilt chat app.

Snapdeal also launched a new app last month – Shopo.