Meesho is a great online marketplace that connects suppliers with consumers. It allows the suppliers to sell their products to the resellers, who then resell the products within the network, which ultimately get delivered to the customers.

The platform uses the philosophy of making shopping social, which allows people to shop with their family, friends, and colleagues.

When the customer contacts the reseller on Meesho, who sources the product from the platform and directly sells it to the customers at a reasonable price. The platform marks its attribute by associating the traditional eCommerce business model with the social selling and dropshipping business model.

Mission

Democratize internet commerce for everyone.

Vision

Enable 100M small businesses in India to succeed online.

Founders

Meesho was Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal in the year 2015. They both founded a hyperlocal, an on-demand fashion marketplace after completing graduation after quitting their jobs, which was named Fashnear. But, unfortunately, it faced failure. But this failure gave the idea to the duo to enable small, unorganized sellers to open their online shops and named the company - Meesho.

Vidit Aatrey was a founder and president of Pledge and also worked at ITC Limited as Supply Chain Manager. He also worked at InMobi, where he served as a Senior Associate in Global Strategy and Operations.

Sanjeev Barnwal after completing his course at IIT joined Sony in Japan. His efforts, passion, and core ideas helped Meesho to become a great online shopping platform. Today, he serves as the Co-founder and CTO of Meesho.

How Does Meesho Work?

It is a platform for resellers and suppliers to sell their products, which allows different companies to resell on the app. It also provides a commission on each sale. Customers can easily find the business names, addresses, prices, and all the other information conveniently.

One can also avail the benefit of getting a commission from reselling the products of other people. The resellers can suggest many items to potential customers. The platform has most of its resellers as homemakers from India. It also properly guides its resellers on how to run the business online. It allows traders and sellers to create a marketplace and sell their products online to potential customers.

It sends alert notifications to the distributors when potential customers view their stores, after which they forward detail on WhatsApp, which reduces inventory costs. The company uses WhatsApp messaging to exchange products which is a good and convenient process. It has one more benefit for the users, and that is the referral program.

It works in a great way, like when a user signs up on the Meesho app and purchases a product from it. Then the app provides a 40% commission on the first three purchases. The referral code should be entered while signing up, and then the referral can receive a refund if the product has some fault or is not as per the requirement.

It works with a two-sided marketplace model and has two main customer segments:

Consumers:

It targets consumers who are price-conscious, and first-time internet users in small towns and rural areas, and offers them good quality and reliable products at reasonable prices.

Resellers:

These act as a middleman between Meesho and the end consumers. They avail the benefit of the platform and sell their products to their social network at a fixed price, which is also associated with some discounts. Mostly, the young professionals, housewives and students are the resellers on this platform. They use the social media platforms to reach the people.

How does it Earn?

Commission

The revenue model of the company works on commission. It charges some 10% to 15% percent amount from the sellers on the platform. It charges different commission rates according to the category of the product, from where they earn the most. It earns around 50% from the source of commission.

Penalty Charges

Those sellers who do not ship their items on time, or who do not sell their on time, and do not maintain their quality.

Logistics

It mainly provides shipping services to the sellers, and this source acts as the second most revenue-bringing source.

Rank Push

All those sellers who want to market their products more and want to get more ranking, so that they find more resellers to purchase their product, then they can push their rank. For this thing, the app charges a certain amount.

Database

The companies that reach a good level earn from the database, which acts as one of the good sources of revenue.

Funding & Investment

The company always raises its funds and investment and increases the valuation of the company. This acts as one of the best sources of revenue which escalates the company to the heights of prosperity.

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