MEESHO- A MESSIAH FOR THE UNTAPPED RURAL MARKET

E-commerce has been rising significantly in India with the increasing reliability of India's population on the internet. Social media platforms are one of the most common uses of the internet, and not surprisingly, 70% of India's population are active social media users. It will be interesting to infer that where there are people, there is business. With a significant number of people spending their time on Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and other social media platforms, the buying and selling also started via these platforms leading to the rise in "social commerce." Social commerce can be considered a subset of e-commerce and growing social media interaction is helping social commerce grow by leaps and bounds. Indian startups have also recognized the business opportunity behind social media platforms and used them to generate revenue. Companies like Meesho and DealShare are a few of India's promising names for social commerce.

Since the pandemic outbreak, individuals have started relying on social media platforms to earn money, and online reselling is one of the trending ways to make money with zero investment. Even before the pandemic, Meesho, an online reselling social commerce platform, identified the potential of reselling business. The idea of an online reselling business is straightforward- any individual can resell their products by posting them on social media websites and selling them to their friends and family or their known community. Most importantly, a reseller business includes a third party between the buyer and seller who sell the products at a mark-up price. Now you may be wondering how Meesho facilitates this reselling and what exactly is its business model?

Meesho’s Business Model:

Any seller would like to promote his products to increase his sales. However, the seller/manufacturer will have to establish and contact his network of people to sell the product to increase sales. What if you can sell his products to your friends, family or social groups and charge a certain mark-up over and above the selling price stated by the seller? Meesho is one such platform where the sellers display their products, and individuals can post these products on social media platforms to sell them to their known people. Once the order is confirmed, the logistics are managed by Meesho. This way, the seller earns his share of money and saves money on logistics, the reseller or the middleman earns his mark-up on the product, and Meesho earns a commission from the seller, creating a win-win situation for everyone.

Every business strategy starts with an idea. Similarly, Meesho was started with the idea that revolutionized the buying and selling on social media platforms, paving its way for social commerce in India. The founders of Meesho- Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal came across a local shopkeeper in Koramangala, Karnataka, who frequently uploaded pictures of his products on WhatsApp and Facebook and customers placed orders through these platforms that contributed to the revenue for that local shopkeeper. Vidit and Sanjeev were intrigued with this unique and simple idea that is now ruling the online reselling business with its robust business model. Meesho is gaining more popularity in Tier 2,3&4 cities, with more women using this app to generate revenue. Meesho also successfully took steps to empower women to build their own identity and use Meesho as a source of income. It is apparent that data and the internet are a constraint in rural areas and people in these areas use older versions of android mobile phones. After understanding the problems local shopkeepers and shoppers face, the Meesho app is built at a mere 14.5MB, making it the lightest e-commerce app in India on Google Play Store. This helped optimize the e-commerce experience in Tier 2 and 3 cities by giving unparalleled user experience to its app users and is available in 7 different languages.

You must have understood from the Meesho story that every business is only an idea away. Moreover, in my opinion, it is easy to grow a business if it is for the benefit of society as no business can exist in silos. So, let us all get started with building our empire of dreams which is only an idea away.

ABOUT THE WRITER

Sanjana Nahata

Pursuing PGDM at IMT Hyderabad

An ambitious and result-oriented person, keen on self-learning finance and financial management.