Meesho

Meesho Business Model: How does Meesho Make Money?

Meesho is a fast-growing e-commerce marketplace in India that aims to make commerce accessible for many, especially in smaller cities and towns. Meesho lets suppliers sell products via resellers or directly through social media and its app. It works with many sellers to help them reach their targeted audience through marketing, and in exchange, Meesho offers its affordable, fast delivery, logistics, and many other features.

Meesho spread like wildfire among small retailers, distributors, and wholesalers who can now make extra revenue through Meesho’s e-commerce platform. On the other hand, customers get the benefit of affordable pricing, a better product range, and variety. Meesho charges a small commission on every order and makes a commission. However, this is not their main business model. They have multiple places to make extra profit, and this works best for not relying upon one source of revenue.

Here, we will discuss Meesho’s business model, how it makes money, and other aspects related to it. Let’s get started.

Meesho

How Meesho’s Business Model is Structured?

Meesho is based on a pure marketplace and social commerce model. It connects suppliers like manufacturers, brands, and small businesses with customers and resellers. Sellers list their products and individuals promote them via WhatsApp, social media, or via Meesho app’s promotion features. Meesho usually does not charge commission from sellers in most cases, which helps in encouraging many small businesses to join the platform from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. Meesho uses technology, its app, algorithms, discovery, and user engagement to keep customers browsing and buying frequently.

Company/Brand Meesho (Fashnear Technologies / Meesho Private / Meesho Ltd)
Establishment Year 2015
Headquarters Bengaluru, Karnataka
Founder/Owner Vidit Aatrey & Sanjeev Barnwal
Industry E-commerce / Marketplace / Social commerce / Logistics & Advertising
Net Worth (2025) ~ ₹32,000 crores
Total Revenue 2025 ~ ₹ 7,615 crore for FY24 (up 33% YoY)

How Does Meesho Make Money?

Meesho has various streams of revenue that help it be profitable in the era of loss-making companies. India is progressing toward a better future; however, most companies are burning investors’ money to stay relevant. Here are some key revenue streams of Meesho –

1.  Zero Commission Marketplace With Scale

Meesho largely operates with a zero-commission policy for many sellers/resellers. That means Meesho does not take a fixed cut from the seller’s product price in many categories. This policy attracts a large number of small suppliers and resellers. It helps Meesho grow GMV (gross merchandise value) fast without friction. Due to this strategy, Meesho can charge for other services as they have traffic on its platform.

2. Advertising or Promoted Listing

Meesho has several sellers and a large catalog of products. If sellers want visibility and more sales, they have the option to compete against each other through better pricing, high-quality options, a wide variety, or promotions. Meesho offers an advertising or promoted listing feature on its app and website, which helps in increasing sales. Due to this feature alone, Meesho makes a huge profit while it also boosts the sales of sellers who are promoting.

3. Logistics and Fulfillment Fees

Meesho earns money via shipping/logistics-related fees. Although it partners with third-party logistics (3PL) providers, it also has its own logistics marketplace, Valmo, which handles a growing share of orders. Meesho charges shipping/fulfillment/delivery fees. They aim to reduce fulfillment cost per order via scale, improved routing, and a better supply chain. For example, fulfillment cost per order has dropped from ~ ₹ 77 in FY23 to ~ ₹ 60-65 recently.

4. Platform Services and Tools

Meesho offers value-added services for sellers like packaging, quality checks, seller support, app tools for discovery, customer services, and much more. All these features are available to sellers from the first day, but there is a small margin that Meesho makes. Even though the margin is small, there are huge numbers of orders processed every day.

5. Operational Efficiency

Meesho gets a huge advantage from negative working capital, in which they receive payment from customers before taking on all the costs. Meesho also has the advantage of not holding inventory, which makes it easy for them to save costs at multiple points that other e-commerce platforms bear. This method helps in freeing up capital and reducing costs per order via logistics improvement and better utilization through scale.

Financial Performances

In FY24 (year ending ~March 2024), Meesho’s revenue from operations grew about 33% to ₹ 7,615 crore from about ₹ 5,735 crore in FY23. Losses narrowed significantly, adjusted loss (excluding some costs) dropped to ₹ 53 crore in FY24 from much larger losses earlier. Additionally, Meesho reported free cash flow of about ₹ 197 crore for FY24.

What’s new in 2025?

Meesho is a growing e-commerce platform, and there is huge potential for this platform. Meesho’s GMV run rate reached its all-time high of about US₹6.2 billion for FY25, and its projected growth of about 26% is possible through FY31.

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