India’s cultural diversity is now noticeable in everyday internet use. Flipkart, the e-commerce leader, realized its current users bear no resemblance to its next 100 million in every key metric, notably, income, internet maturity, brand engagement, and smartphone usage.

Now, 2018 was touted to be gloomy for the category. With Walmart’s record acquisition and reports of an impending industry-wide slowdown, the race to excite a trillion-dollar retail market was in full swing. The competition — no less than the biggest company in the world — Amazon.

India’s festival shopping season is centerstage for Flipkart in generating demand for its marquee online shopping event, The Big Billion Days (equivalent to Single’s Day and Black Friday). It’s a period where media buying determines success for the competition. With new users looming, Flipkart decided to take on an age-old Indian virtue, to bring thrills to shopping for the country online once again.

Introducing Hagglebot. The world’s first-ever online bargaining experience.

Where Indians brought their bargaining best to set prices on products for the rest of India. Only this time, not over the counter, but over their resident voice assistant of choice, Google Assistant.

In the lead up to the country’s biggest online shopping days, when users instigated Google Assistant with ‘OK Google, talk to Flipkart,’ they could be crowned the country’s craftiest bargainer by Hagglebot. Flipkart challenged hearts and minds of users in their quest to squeezing deals on top products, simulating the importance of feeling like they’re driving the value in a deal.

Instead of seeing another checkout page, users were surprised with a completely gamified bazaar hosted by Hagglebot. It was the only place in the world to to satiate thrills of a bargain, and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to liberate India off its budget constraints on The Big Billion Days.

Shopping in India hasn’t been the same since Flipkart started building disruptive, unique, and scalable solutions. This approach propelled the brand to influence behavior, overcoming marketing and technical hurdles at every turn.

Our task was to:

1. drive interest in the category for new users, while exciting current users.

2. create a disruptive solution to nullify competition outspending us 4:1.

First, we identified the singular, unique trait every Indian believes in: bargaining! Indians love bargaining hard on every single purchase: right from a hairpin up to a house. This set the foundation for the retail experience we could simulate.

Secondly, we noticed the evolution of voice technology as a paradigm shift in smartphone use in India, where it overcomes the barrier of typing for the next 100 million.

To grow excitement and use, we decided to tap a latent desire from the category: to get a full market experience online.

Hagglebot had to deliver on three fronts as a technical achievement:

1. An in-depth experience matching nuances of real-world shopping.

2. Overcome fatigue with bold creative leaps for users to take.

3. Deliver on the promise of voice as a harbinger of an AI-powered world.

We built a game for uniquely Indian virtues. A design sprint was undertaken across 60 bazaars in India to build a robust foundation for responses. Out of this study, we realized bargaining is about reaching a middle ground, and that Indians have a mental utility belt of responses to get to the best deal. 8 commonly used bargaining strategies were shortlisted.

Google Zoo’s teams across four countries then translated each API for India and Hagglebot. Blackmailing and lowballing was handled with panache; GIFs and sounds helped recreate the feel of a shop. Even brownie points for words like “please” was built-in.

Hagglebot was ready for India. Drop-offs, a known barrier for the tech, was finally overcome. A pledge in the beginning. Mini games to solve for monotony. A demo to educate. All to let over 1200 contextual responses shine, and to let users take the spotlight. Ultimately, a scoring algorithm definitively rewarded the best bargainer.

Flipkart managed to successfully redefine user expectations to create a branded experience that shattered records.

1. The average Google Assistant experience lasts for 2-3 seconds, but with an average engagement time of 6 minutes and 5 seconds, Hagglebot was the most engaging Google Assistant experience yet, worldwide.

2. Over 4 days, users bargained with us for over 75 days, indicating the right amount of depth in the experience.

3. India saved over $1.4 million on merchandise sold during The Big Billon Days, with average savings of over 50%. Flipkart’s total GMV of products bargained on Hagglebot was $1.23 million.

4. Flipkart achieved record-breaking numbers to emerge as the #1 player in the festive season. Flipkart’s CEO also emphatically claimed, “the competition is nowhere close. We had a 70% share this shopping season.”

All in all, Hagglebot is the most in-depth and immersive branded voice experience till date.