Meesho’s attempts to escape its low-cost legacy

Anshad Aboobacker, a Tirupur-based kidswear seller, hasn’t been very active on Meesho over the past year. While at one point Aboobacker relied on the e-commerce platform for most of his sales, that changed around two years ago. From a peak of 140 units a day, he now sells only around 40 units through Meesho on a good day.

Instead, he shifted his focus to Flipkart. While Flipkart, unlike Meesho, charges sellers a commission, Aboobacker says he receives more than 400 orders a day from Flipkart. “I still get some sales from Meesho and invest a small amount in seller ads on the platform, but I don’t pay much attention to it,” he tells The CapTable. “Spending on Flipkart ads offers far better returns than Meesho.”

Three months ago, though, an account manager at Meesho made him an offer that was hard to ignore. “Meesho told me they have a programme called ROI (return on investment) Assurance,” he explains. “I have to invest more in Meesho’s ads for certain product catalogues, but they guaranteed I will see sales of 7-8X of the ad spend.”