How Meesho Is Quietly Dismantling Amazon and Flipkart’s E-Commerce Stronghold
Inside the Rise of a Platform That’s Beating the Giants at Their Own Game
Welcome to Episode 4 of Next in Line by Infinyte - a data-first, investor-focused series where we unpack India’s most exciting IPO-bound companies with crisp, data-backed drops.
It’s everything you need to stay one step ahead of the bell-no fluff, no noise, just smart, visual storytelling.
Because the best stories don’t start at the IPO-they start just before it.
Stay tuned, stay curious!
Episode 4: The Seller-First Strategy Redefining E-Commerce in India
Three years ago, Amazon and Flipkart looked unbeatable.
They were the titans of Indian e-commerce - selling everything from pet hoodies to smartphones under one digital roof. The only real battle was between the two of them.
Somewhere between 2021 and 2024, something changed.
While the giants poured billions into their platforms and continued to burn cash in the quest for market dominance, a homegrown startup was quietly building a different kind of empire. One that focused not on convenience or product variety, but on price, access, and fairness.
That startup?
Meesho - once dismissed as a reseller app for housewives - is now on track for profitability, prepping for a $1B IPO, and reshaping the entire logic of online retail in India.
This is not just a growth story.
This is a case in how rethinking incentives can crack open massive markets the incumbents couldn’t touch.
The Great E-Commerce Fragmentation
For years, Amazon and Flipkart operated under the assumption that Indian e-commerce was a monolith - one giant “everything store” model that served everyone.
The last few years have proven that the Indian internet user is not one size fits all.
At the top end of the market, Zepto, Blinkit, and Instamart carved out a loyal base by making delivery so fast it’s almost invisible.
At the bottom end - small towns, first-time shoppers, price-conscious families - Meesho quietly became the platform of choice.
Meesho's average order value (AOV) is just ₹370 - compared to ₹1,000+ for Flipkart and Amazon.
This isn’t a bug. It’s by design, their strategy. It sells what India really needs at the prices it can actually afford.
Meesho’s Moat? Beating Prices, Not Just Products
Where Amazon and Flipkart take commission cuts from sellers and then compete with them through their own private labels, Meesho does the opposite.
0% commission. Sellers only pay a fulfilment fee based on location.
No private labels. Meesho doesn’t compete with its own sellers.
No seller tiering. Every seller is treated equally - no “gold” badges, no backroom deals.
And then there’s the data:
65% of Meesho’s products are 20–30% cheaper than Amazon or Flipkart.
85% of orders in the past year came from returning users.
With over 60 million+ small businesses in India and 85% of retail in India, still unorganized: Meesho is making a strong move to bring them online.
This isn’t just e-commerce, this is market enablement.
Selling by Helping Sellers
At the heart of Meesho’s success is a radical rethinking of incentives.
While the rest of the market focused on taking margins from sellers, Meesho built a system that helps sellers grow:
Faster payment cycles: Reduced from 19 days to just 7 days.
Performance marketing tools: Even the smallest sellers can advertise.
Price recommendation engines: Helps sellers list at optimal price points.
The result?
Sellers don’t just sell on Meesho - they grow on Meesho. And as they grow, Meesho earns - not from commissions, but from advertising.
It's a win-win model built for scale - without needing to burn billions on inventory and warehousing.
Tiered Sellers, Tiered Outcomes: How Meesho Broke the Mold
Beneath the surface of Amazon and Flipkart’s e-commerce dominance lies a tough truth - not all sellers are treated equally.
Amazon’s seller ecosystem has faced repeated criticism and litigation for favouritism. Just 33% of its sellers account for a third of goods sold, driven by an opaque system that boosts a select few.
Flipkart is more structured but similarly exclusionary - sellers are slotted into Bronze, Silver, and Gold tiers, with better perks, visibility, and payouts reserved for the top ranks. For most small businesses, it’s a system that rewards scale over merit.
Meesho took a different path.
No tiers. No favourites. Every seller gets the same tools, support, and visibility - whether they ship 10 units or 10,000.
That simple choice has paid off. It’s built trust, loyalty, and an 80% seller retention rate - not by privileging the top 1%, but by empowering the rest.
Chris Andersen of Wired on the thesis about enabling the long-tail. https://www.wired.com/2004/10/tail/
Profitability, Not Just Optics
And now, the numbers are beginning to show what the strategy has been building toward all along:
Revenue is growing steadily. Losses are narrowing fast. And in the first half of FY25, Meesho’s marketplace business turned profitable.
For an e-commerce company operating in India, that’s more than impressive - it’s historic.
The Reverse Flip: A Sign of What’s to Come
In a move that signals serious intent, Meesho is preparing to reverse flip - shifting its parent entity from Delaware back to India via a reverse merger with its Indian unit, Fashnear Technologies. A reverse flip sets the stage for a domestic IPO, targeted for 2026. And it aligns the company structurally with Indian investors, regulators, and capital markets.
A quick primer on why reverse flips are catching on here
In 2024-25 Meesho has already raised:
$275 million from existing investors like SoftBank and Prosus
$250–270 million from new investors including Tiger Global and Mars Growth Capital
IPO bankers are in place: Morgan Stanley, Kotak, and Citi - with JP Morgan likely to join soon. Reported valuation estimates are hovering around $10 billion for the IPO.
What Should Investors Be Watching?
Flipkart started the Indian e-commerce story. Amazon globalized it. Meesho may be the one that finally makes it work - not just for customers, but for the small businesses that still run 85% of Indian retail.
Built for Bharat, Meesho runs on razor-thin margins, powering millions of low-ticket orders from small, unorganized sellers. Behind the scenes, it’s solving tough problems: personalized recommendations on low-end phones, real-time pricing and catalog cleanup, fraud detection, and last-mile delivery to hard-to-reach locations-all at scale.
Now, with public markets in sight, key questions emerge:
Can it stay profitable while managing complex, high-volume logistics and micro-transactions?
Will rising delivery expectations force costly investments in infrastructure?
Can it keep its zero-commission, seller-first model under investor pressure?
And most importantly: is this the blueprint for India’s next-gen internet companies?
Can its tech can keep up with its ambition?
Meesho isn’t trying to out-Amazon and Flipkart. It’s building the India-first alternative that might just outlast them both. We look forward to hearing from you as we collectively ponder:
What does Indian e-commerce look like when it’s built not for the top 10 million - but the next 300 million?
Stay tuned. This one’s far from over.