Meesho annual review: Gen-Z and smaller towns drive growth
Meesho has reported 35% growth in key categories like fashion, beauty, personal care, and home essentials, driven by a surge in demand from younger, internet savvy consumers from smaller cities.
Affordable ecommerce platform Meesho has reported 35% growth in key categories like fashion, beauty, personal care, and home essentials, driven by a surge in demand from younger, internet savvy consumers from smaller cities.
The Bengaluru-based platform boasts of about 175 million annual transacting users for the year 2024, with 210 million downloads, indicating strong traction from previously untapped markets, especially Tier III and Tier IV towns.
About 50% of its user base are from Tier IV and beyond towns like Naidupeta (Andhra Pradesh), Sherghati (Bihar), and Harapanahalli (Karnataka). States like Ladakh, Uttar Pradesh, and Bihar emerge as front runners among its new user cohort.
Gen Z, which makes up about one-third of Meesho's user base, has been a key driver behind the growing demand for sustainable and trendy products, such as glass tumblers and steel straws. Meesho has capitalised on this demand, with a significant portion of Gen Z's purchasing decisions being influenced by the platform’s targeted influencer marketing efforts.
The company is focusing on GenZ by enhancing its offerings such as multi-lingual voice bot feature, which already has an 80% resolution rate.
Additionally, the platform's integration of AI-powered product recommendations, vernacular voice search, and AI-driven translations for product descriptions has played a crucial role in driving orders.
Meesho's top categories, beauty and personal care and home decor, have seen 70% year-on-year growth in orders, driven in part by the platform's generative AI initiatives that create personalised shopping experiences for users. Its branded products vertical, Meesho Mall, witnessed a 117% increase in orders, helped by brands like Lotus (6X growth), Joy (5.5X growth), Renee (3.5X boost), and Dollar (1.8X increase).
In FY23-24, the company clocked operating cash flow of Rs 232 crore. During the same period, its operating revenue grew by 33%, reaching Rs 7,615 crore, driven by larger user base and repeat purchases.
Vidit Aatrey-led Meesho also prevented over 22 million fraudulent transactions, blocked 7.7 million scam attempts, and achieved a 98% success rate in addressing account takeover fraud.
Edited by Megha Reddy