Meesho is an Indian e-commerce platform, that was founded in 2015 by graduates from IIT

Delhi, Vidit Atre and Sanjeev Barnwal and Meesho is headquartered in Bangalore. Meesho

mainly operates and presents itself as an online reselling platform that enables anyone,

customers themselves, vendors or sellers to start a business without investment. Meesho

enables small retail merchants to connect and sell their products effectively via social media

channels and it currently has 2.6 million resellers on their business platform. Over 70% of users

and customers of Meesho come from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities and these customers can be

classified as those who are generally price conscious by nature, but in terms of quality they

want to buy quality products. Meesho has reshaped itself over the years from a platform that

was positioned as a reseller-focused platform which enabled people to sell online, has now

become into a big single ecosystem while plays the crucial role of connecting sellers to other

consumers and entrepreneurs. The startup also aspires in the long term to build an

environment where people and sellers can establish a business with no significant investment.

Meesho’s mission is to democratize internet commerce for everyone and its vision is to enable

100 million small businesses in India to move their business online and succeed on the

platform.

Meesho’s recent success has also coincided with the global pandemic as people have started

depending more on online platforms for purchasing, selling and reselling. Hence Meesho plays a

crucial role as it is very economical to establish an online reselling as product expenses,

inventory and other expenses are very minimal as Meesho is just a link between the supplier

and the buyer. Meesho operates on a B2B business model as it involves resellers, who are the

middleman between consumers and sellers and helps increase sales for business and charges
the commissions anywhere from between 5-15%. Meesho also offers businesses logistic

services and advertising on their app, which also helps them earn their revenue. They also hold

a good amount of user data of which it might sell to its partner companies, which is another

revenue stream, but not sensitive data. Meesho too has got significant backing, from funding

collected through various rounds, biggest one being an almost $600 million investment from

the Softbank Vision Fund. The Meesho Business model mostly enables women, homemakers,

and even some men to start their online business on Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram

without investing through Meesho.

Meesho’s strong points which help them gain so much use and traction from customers is that

of the trust and personalization in the brand. As mentioned before, the majority of Meesho’s

customers are from Tier2 and 3 cities and they do not prefer to shop online due to complicated

interfaces of other applications or fear of defective products being delivered. Hence, this model

of reselling is very assuring for them as they view a very personalized product according to their

liking. It is also very cost-effective as the prices of products on this app are lower than the big

wigs in the industry as they don’t involve big and major fixed assets or fixed costs and is an

asset-light model. Meesho also targets more resellers on its platform and aims to become a big

platform that is extensively used in Tier 1 cities. Meesho is also getting good viewership

currently as they have bought ad spaces with Star Sports during the IPL, the most watched

sporting event in India, and are also sponsoring one of IPL’s most popular franchises in Royal

Challengers Bangalore as their pant sponsor.

Now that we have seen the introductions and previews of both the companies, we now further

see that why we believe that the merger between Flipkart and Meesho should take place and

why we believe it is a win-win situatio