Meesho shutters Superstore grocery biz in India, 300 'lose' jobs

New Delhi, Aug 26
Homegrown social commerce platform Meesho has reportedly shut down its grocery business called Superstore in more than 90 per cent of cities in India (except Nagpur and Mysuru), resulting in several job losses.

According to an Inc42 report, nearly 300 employees have lost jobs after the shuttering of Meesho Superstore.

When reached, the company did not comment on the development.

In April, Meesho rebranded Farmiso to Superstore, with an aim to highlight its continued focus to fulfill consumer demand for daily essentials in Tier 2 markets and beyond.

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

The social commerce platform earlier laid off more than 200 employees in the first wave of the pandemic.

According to the Inc42 report, "low revenue and a high cash burn was the reason behind the startup's decision to wind up operations in most of the cities" this time.

Meesho Superstore was operational in six states -- Karnataka, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra.

The report mentioned that Meesho offered a two-month salary as a severance package to those laid off.

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

"What started as a pilot in Karnataka is now seeing positive traction across six states. Driven by our user-first mindset, the integration will provide millions of Meesho 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.

Meesho launched a pilot in Karnataka to make online grocery shopping affordable, and the company aimed to make Superstore available in 12 states by the end of 2022.

The Meesho marketplace provides small businesses, which includes small and medium businesses (SMBs), micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and individual entrepreneurs, access to millions of customers, from over 700 categories, pan-India logistics, payment services and customer support capabilities.

Meesho recently reached 100 million transacting users. Since March 2021, the transacting user base on the platform has surged 5.5 times while the assortment has grown 9X to 72 million during the same period, claimed the company.