Meesho Fires 300 Employees, Shuts Down Grocery Business In 90% Of Cities

Social commerce platform Meesho has shuttered its grocery business called Superstore in more than 90 percent of cities in India (except Nagpur and Mysuru).

This has resulted in nearly 300 employees losing their jobs.

It was operational in 6 states — Karnataka, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra.

Integration with core app

In April, Meesho rebranded Farmiso to Superstore to highlight its continued focus on delivering daily essentials to cater to consumer demand in tier 2 markets and beyond.

The same month it laid off more than 150 employees, mostly from Farmiso in an effort to integrate its grocery business within the core application.

It had previously sacked more than 200 employees in the first wave of the pandemic.

Reasons behind latest firings

Inc42 reported low revenue and a high cash burn to be behind the move to wind up operations in most of the cities this time.

It has offered a two-month salary as a severance package to those laid off.

CEO Speaks

Vidit Aatrey, Founder and CEO, Meesho said that the company looks forward to integrating Meesho Superstore with its core app.

The business started as a pilot in Karnataka and has since expanded to six states.

It aims to make Superstore available in 12 states by the end of 2022.

The integration will provide the platform’s users a unified shopping experience “while giving us an opportunity to drive stronger synergies across areas such as customer acquisition, technology and product and talent,” he had said in a statement.

About the business

The Meesho marketplace provides businesses access to millions of customers from over 700 categories.

In particular, it caters to small and medium businesses (SMBs), micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and individual entrepreneurs who also gain access to pan-India logistics, payment services and customer support capabilities.

Transacting user base

It recently hit the milestone of 100 million transacting users.

Since March 2021, the transacting user base has surged 5.5 times while the assortment has grown 9x to 72 million during the same period.