Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

Marketing Strategy of MEESHO

MEESHO (short for ‘meri shop’) has deemed to be one of the biggest startups
in India currently. It holds value in terms of selling through the website and
reselling through social media applications such as WhatsApp, Facebook and
Telegram. This platform provides access to a large number of people for the
purpose of reselling products, most of whom are housewives or elderly
people.
A brief history of MEESHO, it was founded by IIT graduates ViditAatrey and
Sanjeev Barnwal as FashNear. FashNear was also an e-commerce platform
that was fashion-oriented, and soon after, MEESHO was adopted. The
company mainly consists of these four aspects; supplier, reseller, company,
consumer.
The supplier provides the goods onto the platform, and the reseller then
captures pictures and details about the good and publicises it around on their
social media platforms. Once a customer is interested in the product, the
reseller places an order on the website. This then leads back to the supplier to
keep the product ready for pickup facilitated by MEESHO itself. Pick up, and
delivered. Customers that are interested in long-tail items are typically sold to
by these resellers, entailing a recurrent and loyal network of consumers. The
aim is to offer huge quantities of unusual items to clients, therefore these
products are supplied by specialised producers.
The commission acquired by the reseller would be after the delivery of the
product by MEESHO itself and not the supplier. This model of function
worked in great efforts.
The company sets sail as a startup in 2015 and now brings forth the downfall
of Amazon and Flipkart. From fashion to groceries, MEESHO offers a range
of products to put forth. The company promotes its brand image to be similar
yet different from high-end companies like Amazon and Flipkart. In
similarity, the structure of all three companies are B2C in nature. In
difference, the supply of products differ in MEESHO being more locally
sourced than the others. This also is in contribution to the small business
sectors that the company enables to bring in an income. Although, a con
would be that this bring in a gateway to fake identities and purchases to trick
the customers as well as resellers.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, the company had hit a new low. The company
had to dismiss about 200 employers due to the situation and had the lowest
year in the past five years. This in return meant a bad state for the
entrepreneurs and resellers. Due to the country going on power saving mode,
the demand for the products had also decreased to a significant rate. However
after the lockdown rules had been lifted, the company went on a full drive.
This entailed handing out small loans for the entrepreneurs as well as the
resellers so help stand their feet and build their business in a smaller rate.
This helped the businesses to do way better than how they were, pre-Covid by
a 25%-30% increased rate. This developed a new found equation between the
company and the entrepreneurs and the company had turned a big promotion
for brand loyalty because of how they took to their hand to help the suppliers.
When it comes to campaigning, MEESHO takes to TVC and social media
profoundly. We see below two TVC advertisements that gained popularity for
the company and the message they build to get across.

Social Media Marketing

The world is digitizing at a rapid rate. People spend a lot of time on their
social media.
Meesho also engages in social media marketing.

Meesho Instagram Marketing

This helps to develop a connection with the audience. It engages in
collaborations, campaigns, graphics, and videos to promote its brand. It makes
sure to build its online popularity.

Influencer Marketing
Influencers hold great potential and an audience with them. When a brand gets
associated with an influencer, it gains the customers’ trust.
Meesho has also opted for the strategy of influencer marketing. Various
influencers like Devoleena Bhattacharjee, Paras Bhushan Kalnawat promote
Meesho. This helps Meesho gain more audience towards the company.
Meme Marketing

Memes Posted by RVCJ Collaborating with Meesho

Memes are the latest trend in the market. Everyone loves to see and share
them. So, strategizing a company’s promotion in these memes is a successful
marketing technique.
Meesho has also taken a plunge in meme marketing. Meesho shares its new
offers, discounts in memes. For example- They have used a dialogue from Jab
We Met movie to convey its affordable prices. This strategy helps the
company to attract more audiences and gain customers.

YouTube and Facebook Ads

Advertisements are the best way to market any business. Keeping up with the
trend of digital marketing, Meesho uses YouTube and Facebook ads.
These ads help Meesho to build a strong presence. YouTube has a huge
demographic audience. Thus, this strategy helps Meesho get seen by more
viewers. Whenever a person clicks on these ads, they are redirected to the
Meesho site or app. In this way, it helps the company to earn traffic.

Here's one of the popular ad campaigns - "Sahi Price" by Meesho.

Meesho also follows some other marketing strategies like email marketing,
television commercials, sponsorships, SMS marketing to build its brand
presence.

Meesho’s Traffic Sources

Meesho’s marketing strategy is mainly focused on Direct traffic which is

50.99% on average. It gets search traffic of 40.21%. Apart from these, it
generates traffic of 3.73% from social media, 4.26% from emails, 0.67% from
referrals, and 0.14% from the display.

Covid-19 Marketing Strategy of Meesho

Meesho took a high road and gained huge popularity during the pandemic. At
the time when people were losing their jobs and looking for business
opportunities,Meesho came as a ray of hope.

It not only provides products at an affordable rate but also helps individuals to
resell them. They made campaigns like #MyStoreMyStory. The ad shows how
a woman carries many roles in her life for her loved ones. It promotes itself by
showing how Meesho helps women earn their entrepreneurial identity with no
investment.

During the pandemic, Meesho through its marketing strategies encouraged

people to engage in its business opportunities.

My Store My Story
Although MEESHO campaigns a lot through social media platforms, their
TVC campaigns have a great deal of audience as well. The TVC campaign
#MyStoreMyStory exhibits a storyline for empowerment that correlates with
their brand ordeal. MEESHO has approximately 17 million distributors, 15
million of them are women, and 60,000 suppliers on its network, which has
over a million dealers. Hence, it brings into perspective the campaign towards
their women audience.
The hardships of being a homemaker and being addressed by different names
but the company creating an identity for women themselves was a campaign
structure that DDB Mudra powered through. This entails the social barriers
that women have to uphold to keep intact for the family and hence can also
generate an income by doing a work they love. That wraps in up with the final
ending line of ‘Not just a homemaker, a Meesho Entrepreneur’, as a slogan
hold.

Hamara Mission, Sabse Kam Commission

The campaign, #SabseKamCommission, was to put in light the commission rate
that was taken from the suppliers in accordance to the sale of their products.
Wunderman Thompson had developed this concept and it perceived the
structure of how MEESHO works towards the aim of reduced commission as
low as 1%. This marketing strategy catered to everyone who had their small
businesses launched, especially during the difficulties of the pandemic.
Due to multiple logistically factors, the small business owners had minimal
factors to worry about as the venture could cover it. Going offline took a
major turn with the development and recognition of these businesses and the
goods they sell. Through their social media networks, these businesses
connect clients with suppliers from all across the country, which had all come
to halt due to the unexpected situation. With this campaign, they intended to
convey that there would be maximised profit for the supplier because of the
low commission, which was highly beneficial.
In effect, the campaign turned out to be very popular. It promoted their growth
of more than one crore resellers, more that 700 categories of items to shop for,
low shipping costs, and with the lowest of commission for the entrepreneurs.
The Idea
Now the conceptualisation behind MEESHO had originated from their
primary audience of women. Empowerment of women have been their key
motto since the development of the idea. There was a lot to hassle with
women entrepreneurs and the prospective budget, especially logistically.

With MEESHO, all they have to worry about is the safety and the quality of
the product they’re selling and the advertising and delivery is taken care of.

An aspect to factor in was the capital required to start a business which most
housewives, elderly people or students don’t have. For those starting out in the
field, it was important to have a business website to put out their catalogs and
brand content but did not have the capital or time to build it. Self-employment
as a term, was conjured here for these individuals to make their income out of
the platform. Whether it is by supplying or reselling.

This enabled women housewives to create a whole space for themselves and
make an income out of it. This was their selling point, and it worked. Catering
towards empowerment led to a cause of uprising for women to do something
they love but in the comfort of their own homes. Nearly 90% of the venture’s
members are women, including students, housewives, and company
entrepreneurs. Even so, the country has about 9 million entrepreneurs who are
women.
Hence, they designed their whole audience catered to such individuals. They
aspire to communicate our value offer to a large number of aspiring women,
and they believe there is a lot of value in doing so.

Is MEESHO a d2c?
MEESHO follows a b2c business model. A d2c (direct-to-consumer) model is
when all forms of middle parties such as resellers are cut out of the equation.
This also entails that the supplier/entrepreneur has the main hold in marketing
and publicising about their products.

MEESHO has at least two other variants involved other than the supplier and
the consumer.
The supplier has absolutely nothing to do with the consumer except for if any
damages.
The reseller is responsible for all the advertisement of the product and placing
orders and the company provides all the logistically services. This form of a
business model is what made the venture stand out even as a start up.

How do I promote my MEESHO products?

Advertisement of the product on the platform is done by the reseller.
Promotion and advertising the product is done on social media platforms such
as Facebook, WhatsApp and Telegram. This engages with people directly and
helps them to connect and promote the product better in terms with selling the
product. The touch of personality to those interested helps in better sale. This
could be through different groups, channels, publicising on personal stories
and statuses, whichever helps build the public vision towards the product.

How do you attract customers in MEESHO?

There can be multiple ways to do so, but the most effective to cater to a large
set of audience would be through advertisement. This can be through direct
advertising or campaign marketing. Promoting your business not product by
product by also in catalogs helps show potential customers the more genuine
and quality driven your brand is.

On your MEESHO website where the product is uploaded, there are multiple
ways to figure out why the product was not bought or returned. This helps you
build insight towards what your business might be lacking and then could
build into growth there.
How many resellers are on MEESHO?
There are about 17 million resellers on the platform. Reselling is when you
take orders from customers and are their direct point of contact for the
supplier. The reseller gets to advertise to the customers using social media
platforms and along with the product cost, the reseller can set a margin fee as
their commission. Reselling is a great way to earn money as there is no capital
or investment required to be contributed by the reseller. All they require are
advertising skills and multiple social media accounts.

The margin fee to be set can vary from product to product and with different
customers but not in an unrealistic manner. And, as stated on their website, a
reseller can earn upto 25,000 to almost a lakh per month with their margin fee.
Women attire can have an increased margin fee compared to any other product
on the website, as they are the most selling.

The business model of Meesho has more than a million dealers throughout
seven hundred cities in India on its platform. It offers distribution to gain
admission to other 20,000 producers the ough this platform. Meesho
business model works on utilizing the networks created by social media
groups like Whatsapp groups and other social media platforms. It primarily
aims at bringing in customers for online sellers at lower acquisition costs.

Meesho business plan gained massive investment from the likes of Facebook,
Naspers, DST Partners, RPS Ventures, and Shunwei Capital.

About the meesho app?

Meesho is a mobile e-commerce platform for resellers such as homemakers or

at-home individuals who utilize social media channels like Whatsapp,
Facebook, Instagram, and others to promote products within their network or
social groups. Meesho was founded by Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal in
2015.

Statista facts prove that over 2.14 Billion people are expected to buy goods
and services online by 2021. It is going to gain more potentials since these
social media channels are acting as great catalysts.

The business model of Meesho has become the first Indian social commerce
startup to enter the unicorn club, after making a huge presence of $300 Mn in
a funding round led by Japanese conglomerate Softbank. They are focusing on
helping women entrepreneurs to create Meesho as a single ecosystem that
assists every small business in India to succeed.

Currently, Meesho business model has about 13 Mn individual entrepreneurs,

bringing the ecommerce benefits to 45Mn customers pan India. It delivers
orders from more than 100k registered suppliers to more than 26K pin codes
across 4800 cities, generating over INR 500 Cr in income for individual
entrepreneurs.

Meesho has raised about $45 Mn funding to date with $125 Mn coming in
from the year 2019. The entry of Meesho takes the toll of startups to 46.

Unicorn
The term 'Unicorn' is quite famous among the general citizens. We all have
heard it somewhere in the news, in articles or by some friends. So the literal
meaning of unicorn startup is a public startup/company whose venture capital
is 1 billion dollars or more than that. This term was coined by Aileen Lee- the
founder of Cowboy Ventures in 2013.

India is now the 3rd country in the global list of the number of unicorns
startups as many of our startups attained unicorn status. Our fintech and e-
commerce have companies established this unicorn ecosystem and now the
other sectors such as Ed-tech, food delivery and mobility are also coming up.

Soonicorn
Soonicorns are those companies that are principally funded and financially
supported by an Angel Investor or a venture capitalist. It is done by viewing
the future possibilities of the market or an apparent valuation. The term
soonicorns breaks down into 'Soon to be Unicorn' which describes its whole
meaning.

Over 26 soonicorns in India are waiting to get listed in the unicorn club as per
the sources of the data. It is estimated that in the upcoming years, more
minicorns will be transformed into soonicorns. Soonicorns have reached over
many industries including e-commerce, fin-tech, AI, healthcare technology,
logistics, etc.

How do meesho works?

Meesho business model work to help resellers with zero investment and from
anywhere in the world. All you need to do is to share a product that is listed
on the Meesho app around your network on social media platforms so that you
can earn a commission per sale basis.

More than a lakh products are available on the app so that you don’t need to
worry about the logistics, payments, and supply of products that you sold.

Meesho reselling business strategy

Meesho online business presently has an organization of workers of around
millions of employees and is mainly focused on 20 million resellers. With
50% of Meesho’s goal market coming from Tier 2, 3 four cities, it claims to
make a presence in one thousand cities to facilitate resellers to begin
promoting with funding from anywhere within the world.

In case, you want to percentage a product that is indexed at the Meesho online
business app around your community on social media systems, then you can
earn a regular fee on a sale basis. Since there are myriad options available as a
reseller, you don’t have to think about the logistics, payments, and the
delivery of a product from which you sold. Meesho makes money in several
ways such as commission, logistics streams, rank push.Meesho

online business aims to help the enterprise version comparable to different e-

trade companies. Let’s dive into the different streams:
Commission

Meesho business model makes cash on a free foundation which can

additionally range from 10-20 thousand depending upon the class of the
product.

Since Meesho business strategy is heavily dependent upon supporting last-

mile delivery for its social sellers. The company’s revenue model charges
delivery charges and the penalty for the product return.

In the year 2019, Meesho earned INR 41.4 Cr as commission which is a 32x
increase from the last year. Furthermore, the company also earned a penalty
income of INR 2.1 Cr. in FY2019. The shipping charges grew 19x from INR
36.78 Cr in FY19. It has earned a penalty income of INR 2.1 Cr in FY 2019
which is going to gradually increase.
Logistics stream

Meesho business model has immense shipping expenses which account for
41.5% of the company’s total expenses, which shows that around 91% of its
total revenue for the year on deliveries alone.

Delivery is one of the biggest costs for Meesho. It accounts for 41.5% of the
company’s total expenses- It spends INR 76.98 Cr on logistics in FY19, which
accounts for the total revenue for the year in the deliveries alone.

Employee benefits also make up 33.5% of the total expenses.

Rank Push

Since the variety of dealers grow at the platform they can opt for pushing their
product on top of search and with that purpose, it can add another stream of
revenue for Meesho.

Funding and Valuation

Meesho has raised $215 million in total and is backed by YC, Facebook,
Naspers, Sequoia, Shunwei Capital, and SAIF Partners.

Precious Data

In today’s world, nothing seems to be as precious as data which forms a big

part of revenue for Meesho in the future.

How can you make money with meesho’s business strategy?

Are you searching for methods to make money with Meesho? If Yes, you have
reached the right place. You can share a product that is listed on the Meesho
online business app around your network on any social media channel like
Facebook and Whatsapp, pages and groups so that you can earn a commission
per sale basis.

As an additional advantage, you can add your commission and shipping

charge over the price and when an order gets confirmed you will receive
notification, you will get the notification regarding that. After the next 2-3
working days, the customer can revive their order.

In case, you want to revive the online payment, then you have to collect the
final amount including your margin amount. However, in the case of COD,
payment will be directly collected by the delivery partner. Within 10 working
days, the margin amount will be credited to a respective bank account.

Meesho Business Model

Meesho business model always aimed at the target audience which played a
catalyst in establishing it as the best effective model. The basic idea behind the
founders was to reach as many resellers as possible. They always focused on
getting limelight in the business world without any investment risks which
was perhaps one of the best ideas to have been adopted.

The business results speak it all since Meesho’s sellers are available on
Instagram and YouTube. Meesho’s influencers are available on Instagram and
YouTube. These influencers are available on Instagram and YouTube and
making a living through reselling products on Meesho’s platform. The best
part of their user base is that it mostly consists of women who are active on
social media platforms. These people won’t take much time to make a group
on Whatsapp and selling through that group.

In case you want to buy a saree through the Meesho app

The Supplier lists the different varieties of saree photos along with
descriptions.

A reseller comes across the product on the Meesho app and will share the
images of the tshirt through his/her WhatsApp groups.

Any reseller’s friend will like the T-shirt by going through the Whatsapp
groups and direct messages.

His friend will like to gain more knowledge about the product.
The reseller now uses the app to place the order by adding the profit margin
and the address of the end-user to place the order.

The seller accepts the order, starts packing it.

Meesho app will further process the order by adding an invoice.

The end-user will pay it to Meesho.

Furthermore, Meesho will pay the supplier, keep the service charge and
delivery charge and send the remaining amount to the reseller.

Are you still thinking about how the Meesho business model became an
overnight success?

The simple tactic of attracting influences and ambitious women from

everywhere around the country around Meesho skyrocket business.

Meesho’s new campaign urges sellers to find the right customers to

grow their business
The latest campaign aims to highlight how sellers can grow their business by
joining the platform and taking advantage of the multiple benefits it offers

Meesho, the fast-growing internet commerce platform, has adapted a two-

pronged approach with its latest marketing campaign to tap into India’s small
businesses.

Titled ‘Sahi sahi customer, toh business ek number’, the digital campaign
highlights the ‘Meesho Promise’ of how sellers on Meesho can grow their
business rapidly by aiming to change their perceptions around online
shoppers.
It reiterates how customers on the e-commerce platform are looking to
maximise their shopping experience within a budget. The campaign also has
an on-ground leg in the form of

‘Meesho Seller Express’ which will traverse the country in a bid to engage
with small businesses.
The digital campaign is further divided into two phases. The first phase will
focus on how Meesho provides sellers with access to a wide value-seeking
customer base along with its ‘0% commission’ feature.

The second phase will feature the newer initiatives launched this year, namely,
‘Zero Penalty’ and ‘7-Day Payments’. The ‘Zero Penalty’ feature ensures
sellers are not penalised for self or auto cancellation of orders. A first for e-
commerce, these features are available for all sellers registered on Meesho,
thus creating a level playing field for small and medium businesses to operate
online.

With a mission to enable deeper engagement with small businesses in the

country, the
‘Meesho Seller Express’ will begin its journey in Bengaluru and
subsequently progress to Hyderabad, Tiruppur and Coimbatore. The express
will further continue its journey through the eastern, western and northern
regions of India through the course of this year.

The branded canter will be present at select locations in various cities to

engage with prospective sellers. Along with an introduction to Meesho, there
will be exciting virtual reality games and thematic simulations as part of the
experience.

Lakshminarayan Swaminathan, CXO, Supply Growth, Meesho, said, “We

have just crossed 6 lakh seller registrations on the platform, recording a 7X
increase since April 2021. Nearly 70% of all Meesho sellers hail from Tier 2+
cities such as Amritsar, Rajkot and Tiruppur, among others. With the kind of
growth we are witnessing on our platform, we are even more focused on
making deeper inroads into Bharat. Our two-pronged approach ensures that
we are reaching out to MSMEs through both digital and on-ground avenues.
Through the ‘Meesho Seller Express’, we aim to get up close and personal
with our sellers, allowing them to share their insights and opinions.”

Pallavi Chakravarti, Creative Head-West, DDB Mudra, said, “Getting the right
customer pool is critical for any business to grow. Even more so if the
business owner is selling on the vast ocean that is the internet. Our campaign
seeks to allay the fears that every growth-oriented seller is bound to have and
convince him or her that Meesho is the right platform to connect them with
customers who seek both great quality and great value. And we've done this
by painting an interesting picture of perception versus reality."
"During our planning phase, we identified how small business communities
appreciate brands which are actively engaging with them on-ground. This
experiential setup is designed to be informative as well as interactive for
prospective sellers with a plethora of engaging touch points present
throughout this process. We have tried to ensure that this activity focuses on
giving sellers an opportunity to digitize and grow their businesses with
Meesho,", said Chandra Gulati, Director of Zeeco Brand experiences.

Each master is shot in Hindi and Tamil, and further amplified in other regional
languages like Bengali, Marathi, Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu and Gujarati.

Chapter 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

Key Takeaways:
• Starting your own business has now become easier than ever with entrants
like Meesho.
• This app allows anyone to start their own business by sitting at home
without inventory.
• 70% of revenue is generated from tier 2+ cities.
• The platform saw a 4X growth in business from 84.8 Cr in 2019 to 341.6
Cr in 2020.  15 million women have now started earning through
Meesho.

Meesho is an e-commerce site founded by 2 IITians Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev

Barnwal in 2015 based in Bangalore as FashNear short for Fashion Near.
Later renamed Meesho. When asked about the platform Vidit Aatrey said-
Meesho stands for ‘meri shop’ or ‘apni dukaan’. Almost 9 out of 10
individuals in India have at least once dreamt of starting a small business.
Considering the increasing number of self-employed, small business owners,
gig workers in India, it is no surprise that Indians have an enterprising mind.
However, starting a business requires immense amounts of capital. India is not
a very rich country and getting access to initial capital is very tiring. The
people who never had the opportunity to start a business can come onto the
platform and become entrepreneurs for the first time. One can log in here and
start their shop on WhatsApp and can source any product category from our
supplier, and as per orders placed by the consumer, they purchase the product
from the market. During the times of big players like Amazon and Flipkart,
Meesho is trying to gain trust through social commerce. Empowering more
and more people to fulfill their dream has always been the motto. Helping
people build enterprises with zero capital has been our USP and Meesho will
revolve around that. We are trying to find more channels this year to penetrate
our value proposition further.

Aim

Meesho was tailored to promote the growth of India’s MSME (Micro, small
and medium enterprises) sector and especially women and homemakers who
are willing to start their own business and their journey towards financial
independence. Empowering and encouraging women to become entrepreneurs
was the main motto right from the development stages of this E-Commerce
platform. The founders knew how difficult it is for start-ups to get a good
investment for a good kickstart to the business. So, while finding solutions to
overcome this obstacle, this idea that would enable all business enthusiasts
and small businesses to start their store without any hardships and hassle
popped into their minds. That idea has now grown into the biggest social
media reselling platform that enables anyone and everyone to kickstart their
venture with zero investment and without the inconvenience of the transport,
safety, or return process of the product as that is taken care of by Meesho.

Meesho improved the ease of earning an income for women, Leading to an

uprising of women entrepreneurs. which in turn inspired women to take up
business. Meesho now has about 90 % of female involvement among the
members. The extreme size of this unexplored e-commerce platform potential
for both buyers and resellers has paved the way for a host of new entrants like
Deal share, SimSim, Glowroad, Shop101, and Kiko TV. The focus is to grab
the attention of the newly interested online shoppers from tier 2+ cities by
creating innovative text or video content to engage and attract them. Another
advantage these platforms have over traditional e-commerce is the use of a
large network of community opinion leaders. These leaders belong to the
same communities that users come from and selling products by using a bit
innovation to end-users by creating engaging content in their languages or
mother tongues has become easy.

Revenue Model
Meesho’s revenue model is the same as any other e-commerce platform but it
was not the case for the first few iterations of the app. The First few iterations
looked and functioned like WhatsApp to make the app as user-friendly and
easy to use as possible. This business model has become successful in helping
small and local businesses to sell their product all over India and beyond
metros.

1. Meesho takes standard delivery charges on orders. They earned about

Rs36 crore from its logistic department.

2. It charges a 10-20 % commission depending on the product. In 2019,

Meeshos profit through commission was 41 crore out of the total 80 crore
profit.
3. Returning of products also generates revenue through penalties. Meesho
charges penalties to the seller if it fails to deliver a product or delivers a faulty
product.

4. If a seller wants his products to have top rank in the listing, they can pay a
certain amount to Meesho for the same, leading to enhances sales.

5. Meesho’s revenue in the F.Y 20 is 341.6 Cr as opposed to 84.4 crores in

2019, showcasing 4X fold growth in revenue and the triumph of this business
model. Meesho has completed over 100K orders from its suppliers to over
twenty-six thousand pin codes across 4800 cities.

The path towards unicorn status

1. Meesho generated its first funds of $120,000 after getting selected for a
three-month summer program which was held by Y Combinator, the
Mountain View a California-based seed accelerator.

2. The second round was seeded by Rajul Garg, VH Capital, Kashyap Deorah,
Investopad founders Maninder Gulati, Abhishek Jain, Arjun, and Rohan
Malhotra, and Jaspreet Bindra.

3. A series A round held in October 2017 helped Meesho raise $3.4 million
which was backed by Indian venture capital firm SAIF Partners, bringing its
total funding to $3.7M. Further, in 2017, an Indian angel raised an
undisclosed seed round in Meesho.

4. Meesho further raised $11.5 million in Series B round funding held in June
2018, from Sequoia India.
5. Meesho closed its Series C funding round deal with $50 million, in
November 2018. China’s Shunwei capital DST Partners, RPS Ventures, and
earlier investors took part.

6. In June 2019, Facebook invested $ 25 m in the Meeshos Business model.

7. In August 2019, Meesho raised $125 million in the Series D round led by
Naspers. Former CEO of Vodafone Group Arun Sarin and Facebook also
participated in the round.

8. In the latest seeding round on April 2021, Meesho raised $300M led by
Softbank Vision Fund 2, giving it a valuation of $2.1B. With past investors
like Facebook, Proses Ventures, and Knollwood Investment Shunwei
Capital, Venture Highway actively participated.

And thus, Meesho became India’s latest Unicorn Start-Up.

In-Depth SWOT Analysis of Meesho – One Of The Fastest-

Growing Reselling E-commerce Platforms In India

one of India’s most famous retail corporations that operate a chain of

hypermarkets in India. This time let’s dive into the SWOT Analysis of Meesho.

Meesho is one of the fastest-growing reselling e-commerce platforms in India.

Over the past 7 years, it achieved remarkable growth. Its main goal is to
inspire, encourage and enable the vast majority of small businesses in India to
step into the online world. One of the main reasons behind the huge success of
Meesho is its marketing strategies.
In today’s world marketing or more accurately digital marketing has a
significant influence on consumer behaviour and influences many aspects of
our lives. If you would like to learn more about digital marketing check out
our Free Master Class on Digital Marketing 101 by the CEO and Founder of
IIDE, Karan Shah.
In this blog, we will be covering the SWOT analysis of Meesho. Before we
get started, let’s start by learning about the company, its history, product
and services, and its financial success.

Products of Meesho
Meesho offers a wide range of products to its customers. Products that anyone
can resell through Meesho are:
• Kitchen Products

• Home Products

• Outfits for Men & Women

• Skincare & Cosmetics

• Furnishing Items

Competitors of Meesho

Meesho has lots of competitors to face in the market. The top 5 competitors of Meesho are

• DealShare

• GlowRoad

• Shop101

• CityMall

• Bulbul

User research focuses on understanding our user’s behaviour, needs and

motivation through qualitative and investigative research — to design the
most relevant product at Meesho. User research becomes a critical starting
point to understand why we are building our product, a particular feature,
experiences and the value we create for Meesho entrepreneurs.

Meesho’s focus has always been to grow exponentially with our

entrepreneurs, and remain innovative as a product company. Many startups in
India often don’t recognise user research as a critical contributor to the
complete cycle of product development. They usually consider user research
at stages of testing a product for validation and launch, which defeats the
purpose of developing a product that is user-centric.
Moving forward at Meesho, user research will support us in creating a
relevant, useful product in a fast-changing consumer market, and this will help
us connect back to our core value of making our entrepreneurs successful,
which is our “True North”. We have good online resources that elaborates on
need and value of user research for a company to grow and remain innovative.
At Meesho, the design team recognises the value of user research, not just to
improve UX but also across business functions, in delivering the best product
and experience. User research is a collective effort to continually understand
our users/ entrepreneurs and constantly improve their experience with
Meesho. Head of design at Meesho, Shayak Sen has spoken about the value
and impact of user research here on a product company.

So let’s bust a few myths on user research for a product/ technology focused company:
As the business scales, more users are on board and complexity of user
experience increases making the initial product features less relevant. It is
critical to continuously understand our growing users with less biases as it
gives us authentic inputs that lead to product success. Qualitative research
provides key insights that help us align our product with real needs and
motivations of our users.
User research focuses on understanding our user’s behaviour, needs and
motivation through qualitative and investigative research — to design the
most relevant product at Meesho. User research becomes a critical starting
point to understand why we are building our product, a particular feature,
experiences and the value we create for Meesho entrepreneurs.
Product, technology and even designers involved in building products come
with their own biases and are often quick to find a solution. Talking to users
or conducting a few surveys is NOT user research. User research is a
specialised domain that requires neutrality and unbiased engagement with
users. The intent is first to understand users, identify gaps, define problem
statements and then validate ideas/ solutions.
There are other myths faced by startups such as user research is expensive,
time consuming or required only for new initiatives or ideas.
Moving on, let’s look at how our user research contributes directly to the
growth of Meesho:

Our users give us a strategic direction

User research at Meesho helps us understand how entrepreneurs leverage our

platform, their motivation and how they achieve goals that are important to
them. It gives us context and perspective, that allows us to respond with
useful, simplified, and relevant solutions. Our product can be constantly
improved when we discover and leverage user-centric insights continually.
It’s not just insights to what solutions we should consider, but also what we
don’t need to prioritise or implement in our product.

The above mentioned user research examples also helps Meesho identify
unarticulated needs and to fill in any gaps in our knowledge about our users,
context of use, challenges, and opportunities. It becomes strategic in nature as
we validate our assumptions and ideas with qualitative and quantitative
research on users central to our product design. This will allow us to align our
product and business strategy with the core needs and goals of our users.
Collaborative culture driving innovation Every startup talks about
innovation as the core of its product and company culture
. But driving innovation constantly can be challenging. The culture of
innovation requires cross-functional collaboration across teams to drive
common goals. User research doesn’t function in silo of conducting
qualitative research externally and then coming back to share results with
teams. User research begins by understanding the system internally, aligning
our research purposes across teams and gathering regular data internally that
forms the basis of research on our entrepreneurs. The outcomes of user
research aid teams to leverage user inferences for their own functions and in
addition aligns them to common needs, gaps and opportunities in product
experience for our users.

Incremental improvement leads to exponential growth

The cumulative development of a product is based on several small
incremental changes at different stages and areas of product design. Each
stage and each area of product improvement can collectively impact and bring
immense value to our entrepreneurs experience. And this can include
everything from personalisation of our top entrepreneurs, supporting
entrepreneurs to increase customer base to wider choices of quality products,
an engaging app experience, and helping entrepreneurs achieve their goals.
The more depth we gain in understanding our diverse 2 million plus
entrepreneurs, the more we improve our product to scale growth
exponentially.
The future ahead
Our approach to user research at Meesho is more systemic and scalable,
bringing diverse teams collaboratively together. We have three main priorities
in the coming months: Systems design & standardisation: Mapping across
teams and functions of Meesho in detail that visualises the overall “system
design”. This will allow the user research team to bring value within each
function and also facilitate learning across teams for common goals. We are
building a research architecture, standardising processes, documentation and
access that will become a resource bank of insights on our users and product.
Entrepreneur research: Meesho’s focus has always been its entrepreneurs/
users and will continue to be so. We are deep diving into our users with
qualitative research to enhance our understanding of our user’s context, needs
and goals. This is going to help us continually improve our design and product
experience for our entrepreneurs.

Project based research: Each team and function in Meesho is also

understanding its users and there is scope of qualitative research in different
areas of business and stages of users. We will continue to plan, execute and
manage multiple user research projects going forward as per the project
objectives.
We will be sharing more about us and our work in user research and design in
coming weeks that will help you understand our Meesho journey.
And what we remind ourselves when we start a research project is “Every
product idea/ solution is a hypothesis about our entrepreneurs, their needs,
solution and relationship. We validate our assumptions and answer these
questions through our research by carefully aligning the Meesho
entrepreneurs’ needs and goals with its core value delivered through our
products.”

How to Sell on Meesho? Meesho Seller Registration Process

Here's a step-by-stepp process of how to sell on Meesho:

Create Your Account
The first step in starting a business on Meesho is to register on the Meesho
Supplier Panel, which requires a GSTIN, a PAN card, and a bank account.
Navigate to the Meesho supplier website and log in using your email address
and password after successfully registering as a supplier.
List Your Products
After completing the registration process on the Meesho Seller Panel, the next
step is to add products to the catalogs you want to sell. Create three to four
catalogs if you want to increase your sales. If you sell clothing for women,
men, and children, for example, you should create a catalog and organize your
products accordingly. You must also include the dimensions, weight, price,
and photographs of your product.

Receiving Orders
Your products will be visible to all Meesho resellers once they are live on the
Meesho app. If they think your product is worthwhile, they'll tell their friends
about it on social media, and you'll start getting orders.

Order Delivery
When you receive an order, you'll be notified via email and the Meesho
supplier panel. After that, you must accept the order, package the item, and
apply the label to the package. To collect and transport packages from
vendors, Meesho has partnered with several courier companies.

Payments
Both online and offline payment methods are available. The resellers will
receive payment from the customer after the order is placed. You will receive
payment for your offline orders on the 15th day after delivery. On the Meesho
Supplier Panel, you can find payment information.

How to Earn on Meesho?

You must share a product that is listed on the Meesho app to earn money from
the Meesho platform. You can share the products with your friends and family
via WhatsApp and Facebook pages and groups, and you can earn a
commission on each sale.

You can add your commission and shipping charge above the price as an
individual, and you will receive a notification when an order is confirmed.
Your margin will be credited to your bank account within 10 working days
after the customer receives the order.
Conclusion
We can conclude that Meesho Company can generate revenue in a variety of
ways and profitably from them. Meesho is one of many Indian startups with a
unique targeting and marketing strategy. Meesho is the most recent member of
the Unicorn Club. They reached the $1 billion valuation milestone in just 5
years. They recently received $300 million from Softbank Vision Fund 2.

Chapter 3
Research Methadology

Meesho - Name, Logo, and

Tagline Here is the Meesho
logo:

Meesho means "Meri Shop" or "Apni Dukaan" in Hindi, which justifies the
service it provides. Meesho aspires to build an environment where anybody
can establish a business with no financial investment.
Meesho's tagline says, "Not just a homemaker, a Meesho Entrepreneur."

Founded in 2015, Meesho is a social e-commerce company. It is

headquartered in Bengaluru. Over the years, Meesho has emerged as a popular
choice for resellers and producers. By using Meesho platform, small
businesses and individuals can start their online business with almost zero
investment. The focus is on using popular social platforms such as Facebook,
WhatsApp and Instagram. Meesho works as a facilitator to connect sellers to
customers and also takes care of payment processing and delivery.
Even when facing tough competition from the likes of Amazon and Flipkart,
Meesho has been able to register strong growth over the years. The focus on
promoting local producers, sellers and creators has contributed significantly to
Meesho’s success. Meesho recently achieved the ‘Unicorn’ tag, which goes on
to show its growing worth and potential.

History
Coming from middle-class families, the founders had often purchased goods
from small businesses. However, when they looked at the e-commerce
revolution taking place in the country, they realized that majority of small
businesses were left out. Same was the situation with a number of talented
individuals who had unique products to offer but weren’t able to sell online.
This prompted the founders to design a platform that will allow producers and
resellers to launch their products online. Instead of directly competing with e-
commerce giants, the founders thought it suitable to use social platforms for
their business.

The focus on tier 2 and tier 3 cities is another factor that has helped Meesho
register strong growth. However, competition is expected to get tougher, as e-
commerce giants too have stepped up focus on smaller cities and towns.
Nonetheless, with its unique business approach

and through social selling, Meesho is confident about its future prospects. The
company has plans to on-board 100 million small businesses on its platform.
This will significantly strengthen its ecosystem and choices available to end
users.

Funding
Meesho has received investments worth USD 515.2 million via 9 rounds of
funding. Some of the key investors include Y Combinator, SAIF Partners,
Sequoia India, Shunwei Capital, DST Partners, RPS Ventures, Venture
Highway, Facebook, Naspers, SoftBank Vision Fund

and Knollwood Investment. Meesho has also received investments from a

number of angel investors.
Acquisitions
Meesho has not made any acquisitions in recent times.
Competitors
Meesho competes with the likes of DealShare, GlowRoad, Shop101, and
StoreHippo.

Foundation of Meesho

Sanjeev Barnwal and Vidit Aatrey

Meesho was founded by Sanjeev Barnwal and Vidit Aatrey in 2015.

Sanjeev Barnwal

Sanjeev Barnwal is the Co-founder and Chief Technological Officer (CTO)

of Meesho.
Sanjeev Barnwal has also worked at Sony Mobile Communications as an
Android Camera
Hardware Abstraction Layer Architecture Designer and Developer. He
graduated from IIT Delhi with a bachelor's degree in engineering and has also
worked with Sony Corporation prior to that.

Vidit Aatrey
\Vidit Aatrey is the Co-founder and CEO of Meesho. Prior to Meesho, the
Meesho Cofounder worked with the mobile marketing platform InMobi,
where he designed growth strategies for the company. Aatrey has also seen the
Operations part of the business when he was with ITC Limited.
Meesho works with an employee strength of 750+ employees in its team.

Meesho - Startup Story

In 2015, when Meesho was started, it was known as FASHNEAR. The idea
behind FASHNEAR was just like Swiggy or Zomato. FASHNEAR dealt with
Fashion related goods and allowed customers to buy clothes and fashion
accessories from the shops in their locality. Local shops selling apparel and
accessories could register with the FASHNEAR app, and customers can order
from these local shops, and delivery persons were there to deliver the goods.

However, soon the founders started to notice some flaws in the FASHNEAR
business model. Some major drawbacks they noticed were that consumers
were not much concerned about buying clothes from local shops. Besides, the
shop owners also wanted to increase sales by selling their products online in
different locations of the country, rather than selling their products locally.
These problems inspired Vidit and Sanjeev to work on a better business
model. By the end of 2015, Fashnear was renamed as 'Meesho'.

The founder duo visited many shopkeepers and resellers to identify their
problems. They noticed that many shopkeepers were already selling goods
through WhatsApp, but their reach was limited because they deliver their
goods locally only. They also found out that most of the shops registered on
MEESHO were operated by women, and these women sold their goods out of
their homes rather than in any physical shops. Meesho's current business
model has been built considering these facts and issues, and currently, with
Meesho, women can comfortably start a reselling business from home,
without owing any inventory. Meesho also now empowers small shops and
manufacturers to deliver their goods across the country, while Meesho takes
care of the delivery of the products, facilitates COD options, and ensures that
consumers can seamlessly return the products if they wish. Thus Meesho
serves as a bridge between suppliers (manufacturers and shopkeepers who list
their products on Meesho), resellers, and customers. Meesho also helps
suppliers manage their inventories.
Meesho - Mission and Vision

The company's aim is to help 100 million small companies prosper in the
digital world. Meesho's mission statement says, "Democratize internet
commerce for everyone."

Meesho - Business Model and Revenue Model

Regarding the business model, we cannot say that Meesho operates on a D2C
(Direct to Consumer) business model. In the D2C business model, a product is
sold directly to the consumers by the manufacturer. However, Meesho
involves resellers, who are the middleman between manufacturers and
consumers. Meesho is a platform that helps businesses (which

includes manufacturers and reselling business owners) to increase their sales,

and in turn, charges certain fees and commissions from the businesses. Thus
Meesho has a B2B business model now, which the company switched to in
2021 after it changed tracks from the reseller model that is focused on from
the very beginning. Following are Meesho's major sources of revenue-

Commission

The commissions Meesho charges from the vendors have been a major source
of their revenue. When a reseller sells a product on the Meesho platform, the
seller of that product will be charged a certain percentage of commission. The
commission-based business is similar to those of E-Commerce platforms like
Amazon, Flipkart, and others. As per the company's website, 0% commission
is charged from the suppliers on certain categories of products. No
commission is charged from the resellers.
Other than commission the other sources of revenue are

Logistics

Meesho offers logistics services to the suppliers and charges a fee for the
same. The Meesho team is now working on reducing the logistics charges to
increase the profitability of the sellers.
Advertisements
A portion of Meesho's revenue comes from Advertisements. As the number of
sellers on the platform is increasing, sellers who want to highlight their
products in front of the resellers and customers on the platform pay a certain
amount for advertising their products.

Data
As we all know, data is the new oil, and data certainly offer an income stream
for Meesho. Meesho did not break any privacy policies, and they are only
allowed to sell data that does not infringe any privacy issues.

Meesho - Funding, and Investors

Over the course of 11 rounds of financing, Meesho has raised a total of $1.1
billion. The most recent capital for Meesho came through a Debt Financing
round on October 20, 2021.

Date Round Amount Lead Investors

Oct 20, 2021 Debt Financing - Trifecta Capital Advisors

B Capital Group, Fidelity Management and
Sep 30, 2021 Series F $570M
Research Company
Apr 5, 2021 Series E $300M SoftBank Vision Fund
Aug 12, 2019 Series D $125M Prosus & Naspers
Corporate
Jun 14, 2019 $25M Meta
Round
DST Partners, RPS Ventures, Shunwei
Nov 5, 2018 Series C $50M
Capital
Jun 7, 2018 Series B $11.5M Sequoia Capital India
Oct 12, 2017 Series A $3.4M Elevation Capital
Aug 18, 2016 Seed Round $120K Y Combinator
Mar 1, 2016 Angel Round $180K Investopad, Rajul Garg, Venture Highway
Meesho is looking forward to an IPO in early 2023, as per sources close to the company
and
the matter. It is planning to ready its listing by the end of 2022 and is assessing both the
Indian and the US markets for its public listing
Meesho - Investments
Meesho has invested $8M in Latin America's top social commerce platform
Elenas

Date Round Amount

Name
Mar 4, 2021 Elenas Series A $6M
Oct 15, 2020 Elenas Seed Round $2M

Meesho - Growth and Revenues

During its flagship seasonal sale event, Maha Indian Shopping League, held
from 6th - 9th October 2021, Meesho saw a 750% increase in users over the
previous year i.e 2020. Tier-4+ markets accounted for about 60% of total
demand, including far-flung locales like Khawzawl in Mizoram and Sopore in
Jammu and Kashmir.
According to the company, merchants on Meesho saved over Rs 13.6 crore
during the Christmas sale event alone because of its industry-first 0%
commission scheme, which was launched earlier this year. During the Maha
Indian Shopping League, the firm had a 314% increase in merchant
participation, resulting in a 10X increase in revenues over the previous year.
Meesho onboarded over 100,000 vendors ahead of the sale event with a
number of new initiatives, including free ad credits and no return shipping
charges for the first 30 purchases.

During the sale time on Meesho, customers saved around Rs 60 crore in

discounts. In its fashion segment, the firm had a lot of success. In comparison
to the previous year, orders for women's clothes and accessories increased by
623%, while orders for men's apparel increased by 640%.
Meesho became the latest startup to join the illustrious unicorn club in April
2021, after receiving $300 million in a new investment round spearheaded by
SoftBank Vision Fund 2, valuing the company at $2.1 billion. The company
was last valued at $5 bn in March 2022. Some of the latest growth highlights
of Meesho are:

• It currently has 100 mn transacting users. The startup grew its user
base by 5X in FY22.
• The GMV grew by 3X during FY22
• Meesho sells more than 40 mn products on its platform
• It delivers now to 26000+ pin codes and across 4800+ cities in India

Farmiso or Meesho Superstore

Meesho relaunched Farmiso as Meesho Superstore, in its rebranding attempt

on April 5,
2022. This was done with an aim to focus on the customer demands of
everyday needs in Tier 2 markets and beyond that. Furthermore, the prominent
reselling app in India has also announced its plans of integrating its grocery
business into the main Meesho platform, which is expected to be done within
the 1st week of May 2022. The company boasts of the fact that it has
successfully managed to expand its grocery service to 6 states within 9
months. The company has further plans to expand its Superstore to 12 states
by the end of 2022 .

This rebranding and integration of the Meesho grocery app Farmiso to the
main Meesho app is quite significant and is in line with the quest for super
apps, which are to dominate the Indian and the global digital ecosystem soon.
Furthermore, with only 0.5% of the grocery sales happening digitally, it is
really important to note that Meesho has a massive market that it can tap into.

Meesho Financials - Revenue, Expenses, Profit/Loss

In the Financial year 2020, Meesho made revenue worth INR 341.6 cr, the
operating revenues of which were recorded at Rs 307 cr. The company's
expenses totalled INR 657 cr during the same fiscal, thus the company
incurred losses worth INR 306.70 cr in FY20. Meesho, which has registered a
3.8X growth in FY20, has again witnessed a 2.6X growth of operating
revenues in FY21, making it two consecutive years of growth for the social
commerce business. Along with boosting its operating revenue to Rs 793
crore, Meesho has also earned non-operating revenues worth Rs 48.5 crore.

On the expenses front, Meesho spent Rs 1,337.3 crore in FY21, which

witnessed a surge of around 104% from Rs 655.4 crore, which is raised in
FY20. Meesho had to spend Rs 1.69 to earn a single rupee of revenue during
FY21, which is a 20.6% growth from what it spent to earn the same in FY20.
The social commerce unicorn had to spend Rs 2.13 during FY20.

Meesho Revenue Breakdown

Meesho has recorded a total of Rs 838.6 crore worth of revenues in FY21,

thereby growing by 140% from Rs 348.7 cr, which is recorded in FY20.

Meesho revenue verticals FY21 FY20

Revenue from sales Rs 792.8 cr Rs 306.9 cr

Other income Rs 45.8 cr Rs 41.7 cr

Here's a breakdown of Meesho's expenses:
FY21 FY20

Meesho expenses verticals Rs 424.20

Rs 217.40 cr
cr
Advertising and sales promotion
Rs 645 cr Rs 260.80 cr
Logistics and manpower expenses
Rs 29.70
Others Rs 32.40 cr
cr

Employee benefit expenses Rs 149.30

Rs 170 cr cr
IT and communication expenses
Rs 89.04 cr Rs 37.80 cr
Meesho - Challenges Faced
Initial Startup Challenges
When Meesho was starting off, online retailing was becoming increasingly
popular, but there were obstacles such as a shortage of supply, transportation,
transaction alternatives, and so on.
According to the CEO, they have always aided small firms in their growth,
and as a result, they have never maintained any goods in their own
warehouses. However, due to the COVID-19-induced lockdown, getting items
supplied proved problematic. Even after the government granted a modest
easing on car mobility, things remained challenging.

The Pandemic-induced Challenges

Meesho provided the majority of the income for many of the suppliers that
sold their products with them. The majority of their revenue was impacted by
Covid. As a result, during the first several weeks, their exclusive emphasis
was on establishing a basic logistical network. This was a difficult task
because each state has its own set of laws for vehicle admission and exit.
Most of the revenue for the female entrepreneurs (re-sellers) of the company
came from the fashion sector, but these items couldn't be shipped for a time
since fashion wasn't included under the necessities. As a result, their first
objective was to assist these resellers in recouping part of their lost revenue.
That's when they began pushing vital supplies to their resellers, which was a
category they had never sold previously. Masks, personal care, sanitisers, and
even groceries were among the items sold. They also devised a scheme to sell
masks created at home by their own resellers.
Many of their sellers opted for sewing masks at home, and they purchased
their inventory from them and sold it on their own, on the market. The
organization had thousands of entrepreneurs engage in the initiative, and their
logistics crew even went home and picked up handmade masks.

Not everyone, however, was able to take part in this improvisation approach.
As a result, they devised a micro-credit approach to ensure that their resellers
were able to earn some money. They gave their resellers modest loans of Rs
5,000 as part of this program. They were able to give these loans without any
formal screening or paperwork since they possessed all of their resellers' bank
accounts and earnings information. Even in these uncertain times, they can
conclude that "these moves strengthened our relationship and trust with our
user base."
Change in Strategy, Huge Cash Burn and No Profit
Meesho had truly come up as a poster boy in the social commerce segment
some time ago with its $4.9 bn valuations that it posted, but now the company
seems to be witnessing tough times and is tongue-tied in front of the investors
with a change in strategy, high cash burn, no profit in sight and increasing
competition from big players like Flipkart and Amazon. The company
recently changed its business model and made it similar to that of the
eCommerce platforms.
Meesho has suddenly changed its strategy from social commerce to B2C,
dumped international expansion to foster small-town groceries, and has also
jumped from a zerocommission model to ad-monetisation. An anonymous
investor had recently stated that the company had already spent more than
$500 mn in the past couple of years, but is currently back to the starting line.
Competition has trebled for Meesho, which once had smaller players like
Shop101 and Glowroad to compete with. Now, Meesho is facing stiff
competition from bigger e-commerce players like Flipkart and Amazon. With
its Shopsy app, Flipkart has already entered the social commerce domain in
July 2021 and has challenged Meesho by taking away a chunk of its resellers.
Besides, Shopee, Southeast Asia's popular eCommerce platform has been
launched in India in 2021, which is also giving a tough time to Meesho.
Shopee has already built a $150 bn business in 13+ countries across Asia,
South America, and Europe.
Meesho Layoffs
Meesho has recently fired around 150 employees, as of April 11, 2022, due to
a restructuring initiative of the Meesho Superstore grocery delivery service.
The eCommerce unicorn is looking forward to restructuring its grocery
business and bringing in efficiencies. This has led to the laying off of a small
number of the full-time Meesho employees and the reassessing of some third-
party contractual roles in order to remove redundancies with the core Meesho
business and its operations.
Major Counterfeit Problems
Meesho has been bugged with some major counterfeit problems lately. It is for
the past few months that the social e-commerce model-led startup has been
troubled by issues that are associated with counterfeit products that are
supplied to its customers. Meesho makes it easy for any merchant to set up
their storefront on the platform but that is leading to the sale of counterfeit
products. Besides, among the counterfeit listings, one of them also has a
'Meesho
Trusted’ label, which is worse. Advocate Ajay Kumar Singh recently brought
in a 40-page compliant for the Central Consumer Protection Authority to look
into, who had purchased several products of reputed brands like Ray-Ban,
Adidas, Nike, Titan, and Gucci, which has also been selling on Meesho at
prices that are reduced by several times.
This is not the first time that such allegations have surfaced against Meesho. It
has earlier received an FIR in Lucknow for counterfeit Rolex watches that the
Meesho sellers sole on the platform. The search for Rolex watches doesn't
come with any results now. Though the spokesmen of the company are
speaking for Meesho, claiming that all the products selling on the platform go
through several rounds of quality checks and that the company is doing its part
to curb the counterfeit listings, these products still appear on it. The
counterfeit products and their sale should be checked anyhow by the company
if it doesn't want to risk its position in the eCommerce industry that is
booming in India.

Meesho Smear Campaigns

Meesho announced that a smear campaign was raging against the company,
which is why it sent a legal notice to the social media influencers and the
people associated with them, as per the reports dated June 7, 2022. This was
not the first time when the company noticed such incidents, Twitter users,
Udita Pal and Aashima Arora were earlier involved in defaming Meesho
against monetary benefits. On Meesho smear campaigns, the Advertising
Standards Council of India (ASCI) has replied that if the influencers have
received money to post tweets against Meesho to soil the company's name and
reputation, then they are liable for prosecution, as of June 10, 2022 reports.

Meesho - Future Plans

By December 2022, Meesho hopes to have 100 million monthly transactional
users, which it did as of June 2022. It plans to use the investments that it
received in the latest funding round to double its technical and product skills,
expand its product roster to over 50 million goods, and become India's
preferred platform for users, entrepreneurs, and sellers.
Farmiso (Meesho Grocery), Meesho's community group purchasing (CGB)
company, is also trying to extend its grocery and fast-moving consumer
products services to over 200 cities. The startup is enabling first-time
customers in India's tier II markets to purchase from a large assortment of
foods at ticket sizes as low as $1-2 by making online grocery shopping cheap.
Vidit Aatrey mentioned Meesho's plans to list on the bourses in the next 12-24 months, as per
the news dated June 13, 2022. However, the CEO of Meesho didn't quite ascertain
whether
the company would be listed on the Indian stock markets or of the US. Aatrey also confirmed
that the startup would also be looking to achieve profitability by that time.
CHAPTER 4
DATA ANALYSIS AND INFERENCES

SWOT Analysis of Meesho

SWOT analysis of Meesho will determine the company’s strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities and threats and hence it is of immense importance
for any company to work. It is a tried and true management paradigm that
allows companies to compare their business and performance to competitors
and the industry as a whole.

Let’s first start by analysing the strength of Meesho from the SWOT analysis of Meesho.
 Strengths of Meesho
Business strengths are competitive advantages that allow a company to thrive,
generate value, and achieve efficiency. This means capturing more market share,
attracting more customers, and maximising profits. The following are the
strengths of Meesho:

• Ranking: Meesho is ranked 1st in the top 10 reselling platforms in India.

• Empowering Women Entrepreneurs: Meesho’s great strength is empowering Indian

women to run their home-based businesses and build new businesses and identities

for themselves.

Easy to Become a Supplier: To become a Meesho supplier, you just need to
download the

Meesho app or open a website. Once you have selected the option “Become a
Provider,” you

• will be directed to a short form to complete your details. Once your account is
set up, you can

start promoting your business and delivering orders straight away via Meesho.

• Start with Zero Investment: To join the hundreds of thousands of resellers

who are making money through Meesho, you don’t have to invest any amount

of money. All you’ll simply need is to establish a reseller account and begin

reselling through Facebook, WhatsApp, and

Instagram.

• Customer Loyalty Program: Meesho introduced VIP Membership to

encourage its

resellers. In this membership, if any resellers complete 15+ orders within 30

days, they’ll get an additional 10% discount on their products.

• Community Building: Meesho wants to grow as a community. That’s why

they’ve launched a platform called Meesho Learning Hub, where resellers can

learn to sell online and grow

their business.

• Meesho Mentorship Program: Meesho offers a 14days long Mentorship

Program to new

resellers to grow their business and achieve their first order. The training
sessions consist of

planned activities and certification sessions.

• National Presence: Meesho has its presence almost everywhere in India.

According to

Meesho’s website, it now covers 5000 cities and counting.

Weaknesses of Meesho
Weaknesses are those areas where a business or brand needs improvements.
Some of the major flaws of Meesho are as follows:

• Low-Quality Products: Most of Meesho’s suppliers are local and not

registered brands, that’s why most of the time the quality of the end products

is very low.

No Free Website for Resellers: Most of Meesho’s competitors like

GlowRoad, Shop101,

etc. are providing free personal websites to their resellers but Meesho hasn’t
adapted it yet.

This can cause major problems for Meesho and its resellers in near future.

• Pickup Problem: One of the common problems some resellers face on

Meesho is the pickup problem. Sometimes no one comes to pick up products

from retailers which causes orders to

get cancelled which in turn results in a penalty being imposed on resellers.

• Dependent on One Nation: Meesho is heavily dependent on India and is at

risk from foreign

players.

• Fraudulent Resellers: There are a large number of fraudulent resellers on
Meesho. Despite

Meesho’s excellent efforts, these types of resellers continue to exist.

• Technical Glitches: Technical problems occur on almost all websites.

However, due to some technical issues, customers have a difficult time and

thus this leads to dissatisfaction and affects the attitude of customers buying

and selling habits.

Opportunities for Meesho

Opportunities mean positive external factors that can give an organisation a
competitive advantage over others. Meesho is one of the largest reseller
platforms in India. Therefore they might have many opportunities to approach
them shortly. Some of these opportunities could be:

• Augmented Reality: The use of Augmented Reality can allow customers to

have real-time interaction with products while remaining in their environment.

This can ultimately result in higher conversion rates and lower return rates for

Meesho’s products.

• Crypto as A Payment Option: Shortly, crypto can become a common

payment option for Meesho. This can result in a fast transaction of cash and a

reduction in digital transaction

frauds.

• Establishing in Other Countries: Meesho can slowly start to expand outside

of India, which will help them increase their revenue.


High Availability: Customers can buy anything at any time through Meesho.

People who are busy in the daytime and cannot shop for themselves, have all

the opportunity to buy anything

during late-night hours.

• Increasing No of Users: Numbers of internet users are increasing day by day.

People are feeling more comfortable shopping online. That is why it has an

opportunity to gain lots of

users shortly.

Threats to Meesho
Threats are external factors that can affect a company’s ability to achieve its
goals. Below are some of the threats of Meesho:

• Frauds & Scams: Many online fraud activities can be a matter of concern to

customers visiting a website. If the website has false representation and

duplicate products and neglected security, the website’s reach will be reduced

and customers will no longer visit the

website.

• Competitors: Meesho faces competition from brands like DealShare,

GlowRoad, Shop101,

etc. Meesho needs to ensure that its price, quality, and technology remain at
the forefront of

these companies.

• Changes in Demand: The needs of customers can change from time to time.
Taking care of

these many products can sometimes be difficult.


• Data Concerns: Apart from the obvious fraud, there is a good chance that

things will go wrong with online shopping especially when it comes to user

data. Shopping online requires you to provide a lot of sensitive data, including

your payment details, address, and various other information. If this

information gets into the wrong hands, it can cause devastating

consequences.

• No Direct Interaction: In Meesho there is no direct interaction between

customer and reseller. There is no scope for negotiation. People prefer to buy

physically as compared to the internet for personal experience.

This ends our SWOT analysis of Meesho

To Conclude

Meesho has experienced huge growth over the last 7 years since it started,
especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. It has proved to be beneficial for
tier 2 and 3 cities as they have gained a huge customer base from these
cities.The company has helped various small businesses to start online sales. It
started out helping local stores and now, it has become a platform for e-
commerce resellers, which helps a lot of people.One of the major reasons
behind Meesho’s success is its advertising and digital marketing campaigns.
Since most people are spending time on online platforms, many companies
can market their products using digital marketing and increase their sales. If
you would like to learn more and upskill yourself, check out IIDE’s 3 Month
Advanced Online Digital Marketing Course to know more.

We hope this blog on the SWOT analysis of Meesho has given you a good
insight into the company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

If you enjoy in-depth company research just like the SWOT analysis of
Meesho, check out our IIDE Knowledge portal for more fascinating case
studies.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and do share your thoughts on this
case study of the SWOT analysis of Meesho in the comments section below.

Research is based on primary data that is collected through

questionnaire and secondary data is collected from websites,
journals and previous studies.
Data Analysis and Interpretation 1.Gender

Interpretation: - From the responses collected ratio of female (76.5%) is

more than male (23.5%)
2.Age

Interpretation: - From the above chart it is been observed that majority of

respondents belong to age group of 18-24

3.Occupation

Interpretation: - We Can See Most of The Respondent Are Students About 76.5% And
Employee’s About 17.6%
4.Location

Interpretation: - Above Graph Tells About Variety Of Meesho Users From

Different Locations
5.Income (IN LAKHS)

Interpretation: - The Most Respondent Income Is Between 0-3(In Lakhs)

6. Shopping Preference

Interpretation: - Most Of The Users Does Prefer Online Shopping About

94.1%

7. How Many People Know About Meesho

Interpretation: - We Can See User Prefer Online Shopping Does Know

About Meesho Is About 94.1%
8. Source of awareness about meesho app

Interpretation: - From above graph it is been noticed that 70.6% of people

think that social media advertisement helps them in taking purchase decision
from meesho app

9.Do You Know Meesho's resell the products with no investment

Stratergy?(#MyStoreMyStoryRead)

Interpretation: - We can See 47.1% Know About Resale Strategy

10.People Use Meesho For

Interpretation: - We Can See Most Of The Respondents Use Meesho For

Buying Products

11.People Spendings On Meesho

Interpretation: - Most Of The Respondents Use A Little Spendings On
Messho
12.People Order Preference From Meesho

Interpretation: - We Can See 64.7% Who Prefer Online Shopping Have

Ordered From Something Meesho
13. What People Have Ordered From Meesho

Interpretation: - We Can See About 58.8% Have order Clothing From

Meesho
14.Meesho Preference
Interpretation: - First thing that comes to mind of respondent is that meesho
provide affordable price. 82.4% people thinks that meesho is very affordable

15.Meesho Usage (In Years) 2022

Interpretation: - Meesho Has Been Founded In 2015 But The Usage Is Been For Upto 1
Year about 82.4% Due To Marketing Strategy
16. How Often People Use Meesho

Interpretation: - We Can See 64.7% Respondendts Use Meesho Monthly and

Daily Users Are Very Few
17. Would You Like To Order Anything From Meesho In Present Or
Future

Interpretation: - We Can Se 100% Of The Respondents Like To Use Meesho

Currently And In The Future

18. People Recommendation For Meesho

Interpretation: - We Can See 82.4% Respondents Prefer Meesho To Others

19. People Overall Opinion About Meesho

Interpretation: - - From above graph it can be noted That respondents are

highly satisfied towards meesho app.
Questionnaire
 CHAPTER 5
CONCLUSIONS AND SUMMARY

When life gives you a lockdown, sell groceries. That was the mantra for most
e-commerce players last year when the pandemic shuttered the country.
Meesho was no different. The social commerce company launched ‘Farmiso’
in March 2020, running the online grocery business much like its other
verticals such as fashion and beauty—using its platform to connect small
businesses with resellers, mostly homemakers looking to supplement their
family income, who in turn find customers amongst their social groups.
The Bengaluru-based company raised $300 million in April, in part to grow
‘Farmiso’ over the next 18 months. That SoftBank-led funding round vaulted
Meesho into the unicorn club with a $2.1 billion valuation, three times its
value in 2019. This easily makes Meesho the biggest player in India’s nascent
social commerce market, whose worth, according to Bain & Co. and Sequoia
Capital India, could balloon from $1.5 billion-$2 billion today to nearly $70
billion by 2030. Not bad for a company that pioneered the social commerce
trend in India when it was founded six years ago by two Indian Institute of
Technology, Delhi, alumni, Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal.
Meesho—short for meri shop (my shop in English)—targets tier 2 and 3 cities,
and boasts of more than 17 million resellers, 15 million of whom are women,
and over 60,000 suppliers. “I come from a middle-class background and
we’ve bought from small businesses all our lives.
We wanted to bring them online,” says Aatrey. “In India, there are about half
a billion people who use WhatsApp regularly and the number of people who
are buying from e-commerce platforms is still roughly about 100 million. This
means that 80% of India’s population on smartphones is still not transacting
online. The opportunity to bring the next e-commerce buyers online is very
large,” he says.
The sheer size of this untapped potential— both buyers and resellers—has
spawned a host of new entrants like Dealshare, SimSim, Glowroad, Shop101,
and Kiko TV, to name a few. Their target is the first-time online shopper, with
resellers creating either text or video content to engage buyers. These
platforms have another advantage over traditional e-commerce as
SimSim’s co-founder, Amit Bagaria, explains: “We are doing this using a
large network of ‘community opinion leaders’ who come from the same
communities that our users come from, and sell to end-users through engaging
content in vernacular languages.”
Meesho's reselling model is much like assisted shopping, says Saurav Kumar
Chachan, senior consultant at RedSeer Management Consulting. “You, as a
customer, buy directly from ecommerce sites like Flipkart or Amazon. But in
a reseller model, there’s a third entity between the platform and the customer.
The reseller will share a product within their network via WhatsApp or
Instagram. If anyone wants to place an order, they will place it after adding
their margin and Meesho will deliver that product to the customer directly,”
says Chachan. This benefits all parties—the supplier saves on marketing and
logistics, the reseller earns through their markup on each product, and Meesho
gets a commission from the supplier. Resellers are not Meesho’s only
differentiator over behemoths like Amazon and Flipkart, says Chachan. “Their
products are low-priced, high-purchase frequency, and mostly unbranded,
while a Flipkart may have a mix of too many options. The next wave will
come from tier 2 and 3 cities. It will be more of a question for Amazon or
Flipkart on how they will win their trust and curate their platform as per their
needs,” he says.
Meesho has another secret sauce—creating an easy-to-use platform, just like
WhatsApp.
“The goal we took internally was that we have to build something as easy as
WhatsApp. In fact, the first few versions of our app used to look very similar
to WhatsApp’s interface because we wanted to bring them to a more familiar
place when they come online. I think that’s what worked for us,” says Aatrey.
And work it did. Meesho’s revenue jumped nearly 4x to ₹307 crore in the
year ended March 2020 as transactions grew. However, losses also rose 3x to
₹315.4 crore, mainly as logistics and fulfilment costs surged. As economies
of scale kick in, the bottom line will look healthier.

Meesho’s success and the market’s potential have also attracted some
marquee investors. Like SoftBank, whose investment in Meesho is only its
third bet in India’s e-commerce space after Snapdeal and Flipkart. “Vidit and
Sanjeev have an evolved understanding of the Indian consumer and created a
platform to serve the next 500 million new online shoppers. They are bringing
50 million-plus SMEs online, while empowering women entrepreneurs. The
success of Meesho—Facebook India. “Meesho has been successful in
providing a model for entrepreneurs and small businesses to accelerate sales
beyond metros.

Meesho’s products are essentially in unbranded and long-tail categories such

as fashion, beauty, furnishings, and home appliances. A move into groceries
was therefore natural, though the circumstances were far from ideal. “We
started with grocery because last year many states stopped non-essential e-
commerce and we saw an opportunity to pivot there. In the long term, we
want to make sure that we’re in all categories where small businesses operate.
The next big category is groceries,” says Aatrey.
But the online grocery segment is not easy to crack. Deep-pocketed giants like
Amazon, Reliance, Walmart-owned Flipkart, and BigBasket are already
eyeing the unorganised retail market. Last year, Facebook invested $5.7
billion in Jio Platforms, the digital services arm of Reliance, which is looking
to leverage the social network giant’s reach to expand its JioMart platform.
Meanwhile, Flipkart intends to expand its online grocery sales to over 70
cities by this September.

The silver lining for Meesho is these larger players have mainly been targeting
the tier 1 markets, while Meesho’s stronghold is in smaller towns and cities.
But this differentiation might not stay for too long now that other e-commerce
giants are looking to make deeper inroads into the hinterlands. Flipkart, for
example, launched its Samarth programme in July 2019 to help under-served
communities such as artisans and weavers set up an online business. It claims
to have over 500,000 such entrepreneurs on its platform today. Amazon has
committed $1 billion over the next five years to digitise small and medium
businesses. Aatrey, though, is confident Meesho will manage the competition.
“Amazon and Flipkart have been there for a long time; even before we
entered. But even then we’ve been able to grow faster year on year because I
think we solve a different kind of problem. There’s a difference between the
kinds of customers we serve, the categories and the products are very
different,” he says. Meesho, though, will also be at risk when its users become
digitally savvy and start ordering on an Amazon or a Flipkart, says Chachan.
What then for Meesho? “Today, our customers need the trust of buying from
someone they know in their community. Most of our audience is buying from
small businesses,” says Aatrey. “As some of these needs evolve over the
years, we’ll also tailor our product. We’re not attached to a particular format.”
(This story originally appeared in Fortune India's June 2021 issue).

Conclusion
MEESHO is a growing, successful company that shows potential in the way
they develop. Over 13 million entrepreneurs have used Meesho to establish
their own internet companies with no investment. This entails to their
business model, their structure and their way in on campaigning their cause
and ideas. Along with entrepreneurship, there are other individuals who make
money on reselling. This role can be considered to earn easy money as there is
not capital investment required. Just a mode of communication. This
middleman roles have helped individuals earn a margin that helps build their
growth. The margin fee is also set by the reseller themselves. Powering
through the global pandemic, the company had ventured many ways to enable
small businesses stand on their feet by maximising lesser effort provided by
them. MEESHO grew from local shops to a socially e-commerce platform
that holds upto 10,000+ entrepreneurs. This also is in case of how they attract
their audience and how logistically convenient it is for these shops to hold
base.
Recommendations

1. Upload a higher number of catalogues

Having a variety in your Meesho store is a great way to attract customers.

Customers love to browse through different products before making their
decision.
Choose your products carefully and make sure you have an ample variety to
offer.
For example, if you’re selling sports equipment, also have accessories like
gloves and shoes. Along with sarees, also stock kurtis and other women’s
garments. The hig her the catalogues you have, the better the chances of
customers buying from you.

2. Keep competitive product pricing

You must price your product at the same levels as others to increase sales on
Meesho. Being greedy can be counter-productive for your growth. If someone
gets your product at ₹399 somewhere, they won’t like to pay you, say, ₹649.

Go through different Meesho stores, browse their products, and notice how
much they charge. If you can set a lesser price, while still pocketing a chunk of
profit, do it.
Keep your overhead costs at a minimum and do whatever you need to control
your expenses.

3. Add multiple images of products

It’s best to capture images from different angles to help customers see how the
product looks. Multiple product images provide customers with enough details
to understand the product.
Also, place the product you’re selling on a white or simple background to get
the best images. The idea is to have professional-looking product pictures.
You can also use an online photo editor like Canva to add brief product
information to the images. When prospective customers get all the info at a
glance, they’ll be more inclined to buy from you.

4. Have attractive product packaging

Thoughtful packaging makes the product exotic..When someone receives their

product in attractive packaging, they’re more likely to buy from you again.
And while you’re at packaging, make sure you include a little surprise in
every package. It can be as simple as inserting a hand-written “Thank You”
card or some funny stickers. Take them by surprise, and they’ll remember you
and refer you to others.

5. Promote on social media

Social media promotion is essential to reach more customers. You don’t need
to be on every social media platform. But it’s necessary to be where your
customers are.
Facebook is usually the ideal choice for all sorts of customers. You can find
many customers for your products through posts and ad campaigns.
Blusteak’s case studies are the proof of it. You can also try Instagram,
Pinterest or Twitter to get in touch with more. So, give some time to
understand what works best for your business.

6. Run ads on Meesho

Running ads on Meesho is an indisputable way to increase sales on your

Meesho store. The ads display on top of other product listings, boosting your
products’ visibility.
Meesho Ads makes it easy to be in front of your customers. They also enable
you to track the performance of all ads and make better data-based decisions.
By being present at the right place at the right time, you can entertain more
orders.

7. Sign up for Next Day Dispatch

Meesho’s Next Day Dispatch (NDD) program also increases the chances of
improving your sales. When you sign up for the NDD program, your products
get a badge saying that you ship the very next day. So, prospective customers
are more likely to order from you. With the NDD program, your product
catalogues appear at the top of the listings. And because of faster dispatch, the
number of order cancellations and returns will also be lower.
8. Watch Seller Panel analytics
In the world of e-commerce (and Meesho), analytics are your friend. By
tracking your sales, you can understand which catalogues are selling well
and which aren’t. The numbers can uncover trends you might otherwise
miss.
The analytics help you understand which tweaks and promotional strategies
work best. So, make sure you check the Seller Panel regularly.

9. Try different product categories

Product visibility can vary depending on which category your customers are
searching more. When your products are in a more popular category, customers
can spot them easily.
For example, you can list sports shoes for kids either within Sports Shoes or
Kids Footwear. Similarly, wallets can go either in Men Accessories or Men
Wallets. Thus, you might be able to increase Meesho store sales just by
changing the category of your product catalogue. Test all the probabilities and
find your best fit.

Wrapping it up

Meesho has enabled many people to set up a business online. It also has led
to growing competition. But, now that you know how to reach customers,
put the wheels in motion and build a strategy. It’s time to boost the sales of
your store.

Implication
Meesho, with an estimated value of around USD 5 billion, has become a super
successful ecommerce venture. They became one of the top players in online
shopping during the onset of the pandemic. Presently, Meesho has over 65
million active customers with app downloads above 100 million.

What is behind Meesho’s quantum leap? How do Meesho and other similar e-
commerce apps work? What are the takeaways from their success stories?
A close analysis of all the questions above will be useful for you. The
methodology they adapted may be modified to suit your business objectives.
Meesho is a live example of how a brilliantly designed mobile app, an
intelligent marketing strategy, and an in-depth analysis of customer needs can
deliver result

Meesho gained much popularity by offering business to resellers, mostly

women. They can run their own business, without investing even a penny.
The reseller can simply share the products with their followers, subscribers,
group members or connections on social media and gain profit with each
piece sold. In such a way Meesho has effectively explored the potential of
social media and became the first social e-commerce platform in India.

Meesho took e-commerce to another level by pivoting upon social media

applications. Social media apps such as Facebook and WhatsApp have been
known to create close-knit relationships even with strangers. The WhatsApp
groups, Facebook pages, and Facebook groups have been the first places
where the resellers’ products were promoted.

The growth has been admirable, with the support of word-of-mouth publicity
from satisfied clients. Another point to note is that Meesho focused on Tier 2
and 3 cities, whereas most ecommerce apps primarily targeted customers in
Tier 1 cities.
While most e-commerce platforms, including Amazon and Flipkart, typically
support established sellers, Meesho and other social e-commerce apps have
become a hub for homemakers, particularly women. The app opened up an
opportunity for them to earn an income by working from home. The publicity
the women could garner has been instrumental in igniting the growth of the
company.Subsequently, Meesho used social media influencers to promote the
product. Once the app started growing, it augmented its reach by using TVC
and social media ads. Undoubtedly, an easy-to-use interface, interactive
design, exclusive design pattern, and a clutter-free app have been the strength
behind all these social e-commerce apps, including Meesho.

A woman reseller’s success is her family’s success

Women resellers in our research are not just users; we found evidence and
insights about them as contributors, influencers, movers and makers of family
and community at large. For instance, Radha (name changed) was able to
admit her children in a better private school after they had been forced to drop
out for a year from a low-budget school when she lost her job. Sunitha who
never had a job or managed money started contributing to the household
savings after paying some of the family expenses—this was within 3 months
of reselling, which augmented her savings to 2000 USD within a year. Pushpa
(name changed), a housewife who had fallen into depression due to a lack of
opportunities and self-doubt found a new life and self-confidence through
Meesho’s reselling platform. Our qualitative research uncovered that
motivations and ideas of success for women resellers went beyond earning an
income to acquiring new skills, building self-identity, confidence and personal
development.

Managing the household and scaling business

Popular search and targeting based on our marketing insights and data on
acquiring new resellers for Meesho have been based on work from home, earn
extra income or earn money

from home. Our qualitative research also confirms that women resellers who
are looking for work from home or earn extra income through social media or
online search discovered Meesho platform. These ‘acquired’ women resellers
on our platform are very clear about balancing household responsibilities and
running their reselling business. They are not willing to compromise either,
especially if they have found reselling personally fulfilling beyond earning an
income. Their idea of managing time is not based on specific hours of
reselling work but rather multi-tasking between household responsibilities and
scaling or managing their reselling business. Many women have actively
found support in their spouses and other family members to manage
household chores, their business orders and customers.

Digital access to digital confidence

Often, women, no matter their background, have lacked exposure or
opportunity to run a business. Our research showed that women have
‘negotiated’ social permission to try reselling, especially in rural and semi-
urban areas where digital or mobile access for women is restricted. They
negotiate permission with their husbands or family decision-makers
(father/mother) to get their own mobile device, using internet for the Meesho
app or to try reselling or online business through the platform. The family
agrees with the intent that Women resellers represent a big part of India’s gig
economy. Our data and research have generated evidence that women
resellers stand to gain considerably from platforms that are responsively
designed. Their success is based on their ability to influence a potentially
large base of customers and continually engage them in building a sustainable
business. This is because women in India not only have strong relationships or
influence their relatives or close friends but when supported by responsive
tools, can acquire the ability to forge new relationships with strangers, among
communities, social networks or circles across regions.women would try this
business while staying at home and managing household responsibilities at the
same time. Thus, the women and their families are both building trust with
Meesho and the reselling business to see if this way of earning is legitimate or
authentic. This digital access leads to women using the Meesho app on a daily
basis and over a period of time to gain a measure of digital ‘confidence’. This
finding was backed up during our usability testing where women
demonstrated their use of the app more confidently and were able to complete
tasks in shorter time than expected. This also depended on what stage of
reselling they are at and app usage frequency—whether they were new,
intermediate or experienced resellers. Our approach to designing a quality
user experience is closely aligned to women resellers’ journey of learning and
using the app to gain confidence, both in the process of reselling and with the
platform.

Takeaways from Meesho’s Success

Meesho is the first app to explore the potential of social media for e-commerce,
making it the pioneer in social e-commerce in India. Any ambitious
entrepreneur can take a cue from the marketing methodology and business
model of Meesho. Implement it effectively to garner exceptional market reach
and acceptance.

The key points to note are:

Social e-commerce sector in India is on a growth spree. Accenture predicts
that social ecommerce value will reach USD 17 billion by the year 2025. With
such a high population and presumed economic growth, social e-commerce is
estimated to reach around USD 70 billion by the year 2030.

• Social e-commerce is growing at such a rate that it will be the primary

shopping method for people across all financial segments and age groups.
• Customers from Tier 2 and 3 cities in India will have a high level of trust in
the resellers and followers they build by establishing credibility.
• Personalized support from the resellers would be the key factor for a wide
customer base. This would eventually support the growth of the social e-
commerce app.
• Customers from the cities where they have limited shopping options would
flock in with the smooth shopping experience offered, along with a large
variety of products to choose from.
• Cost-effective products available on the platform will be instrumental in
making it highly acceptable.
• These are some of the points that make a social e-commerce platform a
viable choice. Following the success of Meesho, many have entered the
market with exclusively designed social e-commerce apps. Shopsy, from
Flipkart, is the most prominent one to enter the market after Meesho.
• It is still not too late if you have been considering the idea of a social e-
commerce platform. All you need is a properly designed app with state-of-
the-art UI and UX, a well-setup logistics system, and a group of trusted
resellers. The resale value would increase once you establish your presence.
Hence, you must go for a well-designed mobile app as the first step.