Since April 2021, the social commerce unicorn Meesho has seen a 7 x increase in the seller base due to an increasing number of small businesses on the e-commerce bandwagon. Nearly 70 per cent of the total 6 lakh registered sellers are from Tier 2 cities and beyond, such as Amritsar, Rajkot and Tiruppur, among others.
Lakshminarayan Swaminathan, CXO, Supply Growth at Meesho, said Business Today, "We are aware of the challenges that business owners face while moving from offline to online. We want to give you visibility for all of their products and services, so we want to have an easy to use platform. Our sellers have seen 3 X growth in average revenue because of the access to our large and diverse user base. Since January 2021, Lakhpati merchants selling goods worth Rs 1 lakh and crorepati merchants selling goods worth Rs 1 crore sellers on the platform have grown by 4 X and 5.5 X. Meesho doesn't segregate sellers based on tiers or private label or inventory-led play, which is the first e-commerce company in the country to introduce zero per cent commission for sellers on the platform. The company has moved to an Ad monetization-led business model similar to the global majors, which derive most of their revenue from pay-for-performance led ads.
To facilitate seller onboarding, Meesho has taken several initiatives to help, such as a simple 3 step self-serving registration process, and small businesses with an active bank account and GSTIN number, which can be used to register as a seller and upload their catalogue on Meesho's Supplier Panel.
Our business has evolved towards serving consumers directly in the last year. Our entrepreneurs continue to have a strong track in sales and earnings despite the growth in direct sales. In the last quarter, our 16 million entrepreneurs saw their GMV more than double year on year. These entrepreneurs - most of whom are women -- have been able to start up without capital, earn margins and gain financial independence, according to Swaminathan.
The company refused to share the average order value, because it claimed to average 2.4 million orders a day. It aims to reach 100 million monthly transacting users by December 2022. There are a large portion of people in tier 2 cities who don't transact online. Swaminathan stated that they wanted to bring these potential customers into the e-commerce fold.
Messho, founded in 2015, entered the Indian unicorn club in April 2021 after raising $300 million in funding. The Series E funding round, led by SoftBank Group's Vision Fund 2, saw the valuation of the Bengaluru-based start-up rise to $2.1 billion from around $700 million in 2019. Meesho has a workforce of 1700 and plans to hire another 1000 this year, which will include doubling its tech team.