Success story of Meesho: Empowering Women Of India

In the recent past, the budding entrepreneurs have been relying more on the e-commerce websites to grow their businesses. And the fatal waves of coronavirus pandemic only gave a push to the online business by forcing the consumers to stay at home. Amid the sudden drift in the e-commerce industry, one company that has been continuously helping the local sellers to grow and establish themselves in the market is Meesho. Founded by the two IITians, the company aims to build an environment where anybody can start his/her business without investing a single penny.

In this blog, we will tell you about the success story of Meesho and how its founders managed to achieve such a huge fame.

Let’s begin with understanding that what kind of a platform Meesho is:

About Meesho

Meesho, which means “Meri Shop” or “Apni Dukaan” in Hindi, truly justifies its name. It is the largest online reseller platform in India and has gained a massive popularity among the buyers as well as retailers by making the digital shopping so easy and pocket-friendly. Having more than 20,000 suppliers from over 500 towns to its name, the company has become the number one platform when it comes to secure and hassle-free reselling.

How did it begin?

It was all started in 2015, when Vidit Aatrey decided to quit his job at InMobi to launch his own venture. With the help of his business partner Sanjeev Barnwal, Vidit came up with an idea to build an online platform which could help the Micro. Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs). Hence, they started FASHNEAR (now known as Meesho). The app was just like Swiggy and Zomato. The platform allowed customers to buy clothes and fashion accessories from the shops in their locality. And the local shops, selling apparels or fashion-related goods could also register with FASHNEAR.

However, the idea didn’t work well for the founders as soon after the launch of FASHNEAR, they noticed some major drawbacks in the brand’s previous business model. They observed that the customers were not much interested in buying clothes from local shops. Apart from this, the shop owners also wanted to increase sales by selling their products online in different locations of the country, rather than selling their products on the local level. Owing to these issues, Vidit and Sanjeev decided to revamp the business model of FASHNEAR and, by the end of 2015, they renamed it as ‘Meesho’.

Both Vidit and Sanjeev did their research before relaunching their brand in the market. The duo visited many sellers and local shopkeepers to identify their problems and came to know that people were taking the help of social media platform like Facebook and WhatsApp groups to sell their products. The founders also found out that most of the shops registered on Meesho were operated by women, who were selling products from their houses and not from a particular shop.

After deeply analyzing all the facts and issues, Vidit and Sanjeev successfully built a model where such women resellers could comfortably earn money at their homes, without owning any inventory. And that’s how Meesho was reborn.

Founders & Team

Sanjeev Barnwal, co-founder and Chief Technological Officer (CTO) of Meesho, did his graduation from IIT Delhi with a bachelor’s degree in engineering and has worked with the companies like Sony Mobile Communications prior to the launch of Meesho. Vidit Aatrey, on the other hand, another IIT-Delhi alumnus, worked with the mobile marketing platform InMobi before Meesho. He used to design growth strategies for that company.

Growth in the market

Meesho has had an intriguing journey so far. Since it’s inception in the market, the founders of the company have seen many ups and downs but all their efforts and struggles paid off as Meesho recently entered the unicorn club after raising $300 million in the latest round of funding.

The Series E funding led by SoftBank Group’s Vision Fund 2 saw Meesho’s valuation rise to $2.1 billion from around $700 million in 2019.

As of March 2022, the total valuation of the Bengaluru-based startup was $5 billion.

Moreover, the company has also expanded its operations across the country, covering 5000 locations, including major cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Ahmedabad.

Reason behind the success

You must be thinking that what makes Meesho different from its competitors? Well, the company was one of the first players to enter Indian social e-commerce space. The founders had the sole motive of empowering small shops and manufacturers to deliver their goods across the country without any stress. Moreover, the company charges 0% commission from the resellers across all categories, making it the most profitable platform in the e-commerce industry.

Speaking of the competition, Meesho is catching up with its competitors on the basis of heavy daily order volumes offering its logistic partners high utilization.