According to a report, domestic social commerce platform Meesho has shut down its grocery business. The business, known as Superstore, has shut down in more than 90 percent of India’s cities, except Nagpur and Mysore, and has resulted in the loss of many jobs.
According to a report by Inc42 quoting sources, 300 employees across cities in India have been fired as a result of the superstore’s closure. The closing was done last week. The 300 employees who were fired included both on-roll and off-roll employees, including City Launch Manager, Pricing Team Lead, Warehouse Manager, Sales Executive, Sourcing Executive, Market Intelligence Executive, etc.
The company has not issued any statement in this matter.
Meesho Superstore was operational in cities across six states including Karnataka, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. In April, Meesho transformed Farmiso into a superstore, after raising $570 million last year and pledging to expand the venture to 200 cities.
After rebranding Farmiso into a superstore, highlighting its continued focus to meet consumer demand for daily essentials for Tier 2 markets and beyond, Meesho laid off 150 employees that same month, mostly Was from Farmiso. Its goal at the time was to integrate its grocery business within the core application. Meesho’s founder and CEO Vidit Atre had issued a statement about this at that time.
“What started as a pilot in Karnataka is now seeing positive traction in six states. Driven by our user-first mindset, the integration will provide a unified shopping experience to millions of Meesho users, while providing us with the opportunity to drive strong synergies in areas such as customer acquisition, technology and product and talent,” he had said in the statement. ,
Meesho had earlier laid off 200 employees during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Inc42’s report mentioned that this time around, Meesho offered two months’ salary to on-roll employees as a severance package. In addition, the company has also included some on-roll employees in its core business, the report quoted sources as saying.
According to most of the employees who were fired, low revenue and a high cash burn were the two major reasons for the company to withdraw from the venture and cease operations in most cities.
“The business was not working properly. No money was coming, so they decided to shut down operations in most cities,” one of the sources told the media outfit.
“We were burning a lot of money for this business. Meesho started business in six states without proper planning. Supply chain was an issue, so was logistics,” said another source.
To make online grocery shopping affordable, Meesho launched a pilot in Karnataka and the company aims to have superstores available in 12 states by the end of 2022.
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