India's e-commerce industry is worth $84 billion. At present, there are about 19,000 e-commerce companies in India. However, Meesho is the only profitable e-commerce platform. Meesho, which started with the Swiggy model for apparel, currently has a revenue of Rs 3000 crore. Few people know about Meesho, but many do not know how Meesho is becoming the largest e-commerce company in India and how it has become a profitable company.

Last year alone, Meesho clocked 1 billion sales, which is equivalent to the business of about 13,888 kirana stores.But this wasn't the case a few decades ago.The start-up was founded in 2015 by Sanjeev Banwal and Vidit Atre.Sanjeev was a techie developer who worked for Sony, while Vidit was a business growth strategist.In 2015, they discussed many start-up ideas, the most attractive of which was food e-commerce in the country.It was also the year that Swiggy and Somato came into existence.When Swiggy and Somato came up with a solution to deliver food in 30 minutes, Sanjeev and Vidyut felt that they should bring it for clothes.But they still didn't arrive.They started a fashion company called Fashion Near You.You can choose clothes from the catalog of your nearest clothing store, which will immediately bring the fashionista to your home.But it was a huge failure.It failed because people didn't want local fabrics, they wanted to choose from a wide variety.

Although the first venture failed, they were not disappointed. Their study of the e-commerce market in the country last year made one thing clear to them. Users in tier 1 tier 2 cities are more likely to use the internet and suggest their friends or acquaintances if they want to buy something. They will believe when someone testifies that what they buy is good. It's called social commerce. Social commerce has been in existence in India for a long time, but there were few takers. With this conviction, Sanjeev and Vidit start Meesho.

At the time of its launch, Meesho was a platform that brought together small women entrepreneurs who were independently marketing on WhatsApp and Facebook. That is, anyone can make a profile on Meesho and do business, Meesho will deliver it to the resellers, they will deliver it to the customers, and they will deliver the margin received from the customer. Meesho was making all the small businesses in the country online. Women who were housewives became business owners. This is the beginning of success.

They realized that the next best move was to move into horizontal e-commerce, which is an all-encompassing e-commerce platform.They changed their business from a B2B2C model to a B2C model, which is a direct delivery from the vendor to the customer.

People from tier 1 and 2 cities of the country are not so smart, high-income or close to technology, many are first-time internet users. Similarly, the speed of their delivery or the quality of the goods is not a factor, what matters to them is the value for money that they spend. And it's hard to earn the trust of an award without being told by friends or acquaintances that they won't buy anything. The people living in the cities are always busy and do not even have time to talk to the people around them, but the situation in the villages is such that they influence each other for many things. It is this conviction that has made Meesho a Rs 3000 crore company today. They focused on three things.

Grow the market. Actually Meesho is not competing with anything like Flipkart or Amazon. 50% of Meesho's users were first time internet users. This means that 50% of consumers will buy something from the internet for the first time. That is, they did not increase the share of the current market, they increased the market itself. Previously, only China was the only market where bulk buying could be implemented, but it is going to be implemented in India through Meesho. Community buying is already common in the country and Meesho is trying to make it online.

Second, ensure repeat orders.Ask any company and you will know that the most difficult thing in the market is to get customers to order from the same company again.In 2022, Meesho reached 1 billion sales, with 85% of orders coming from existing customers.Meesho has made this possible by persuading customers to re-order at short intervals and by gaining the trust of customers.That is, Meesho shows the shirt and matching shoe to the customer who wants to buy the watch and encourages them to buy it at shorter intervals.Similarly, Meesho has been able to win the trust of the customers and even now 70% of the orders are cash on delivery on MeeshoThis not only helps in building trust but also gives confidence to the resellers who earlier had a b2b2c model, now have a b2c model.This is why those who know about Meesho were 24 out of 100 in 2021, while in 2023 it is 94 out of 100.

The third is income. Meesho does not take any commission from the sellers, so the best sellers will come to Meesho and customers will be attracted to it. One of Meesho's sources of revenue is advertising, which doesn't generate a lot of revenue. The main revenue for Meesho comes from the Logistics Commission. Meesho, which has partnerships with several delivery companies, currently accounts for 50% of the logistics volume in the country. That's why they are a monopoly in terms of delivery. Similarly, when it comes to profitability, Meesho has reduced its marketing budget by 80% in the last 12 months, yet they have a revenue of Rs 3200 crore. This was made possible through social media. Meesho is a great example of how start-ups are impacting the country's GDP.