India’s ecommerce giant Flipkart introduces social network feature

India’s ecommerce company Flipkart has introduced a social network component to its app. The social network component is called Ping and it allows users to have a real time conversations with friends and help each other on what to buy.

Ping allows users to drag and drop drag and drop products or offers directly into conversations, share their screen so that you can browse together, ask friends what they think and get instant feedback and share products directly from your cart, wishlist, camera and gallery.

Using Ping, users can share pages of the items they want to buy with friends.

Read more: Naspers, Tiger Global throw $150m into Flipkart

Ping is proof that ecommerce companies are finding ways to be a lot more than only be place for buyers to buy things. This feature will allow friends to easily contact each other about items that are for sale without having to leave the app. This is a move that is familiar with Facebook, lock people in and give them no reason to leave.

Flipkart has been clawing its way to becoming a leader amongst ecommerce stores. In May 2014, Flipkart received $210 million from DST Global and earlier this year, it raised $550 million from its investors, which includes South Africa’s media group Naspers. The company is now evaluated at $15 billion.

The company has also made many acquisitions that have helped it grow. This year alone, it acquired a Bangalore-based global mobile network AdiQuity for an undisclosed amount and a mobile marketing start-up Appiterate.

The Pin button hovers above the app so users can tap and ask friends in a heartbeat. It can be removed and brought on the screen by shaking the phone.