Meesho, the Bangalore-based Indian internet commerce startup, has had to let go about 300 employees, as it shut down Superstore, its supermarket chain, in at least 90 per cent of the towns it was operating in.
The grocery unit of Meesho, Superstore, was operating in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
Those asked to leave have been offered two months’ severance pay.
Meesho had rebranded its Farmiso to Superstore earlier this year. In trying to integrate Superstore into the main business, it had let go over 150 workers around that time. At the time, Meesho had revealed plans to make Superstore available in 12 states by the end of this year.
During the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, it had cut over 2000 jobs.
This time, because of low revenues, it has closed down operations of Superstore in most of the cities, to arrest any further financial burn.
The social commerce store is looking to integrate Superstore with its main app. Through this integration, Meesho customers will enjoy a unified shopping experience.
Meesho was founded about seven years ago by Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal, with the aim of enabling 100 million small businessmen and entrepreneurs to enjoy success online. With over 100,000 registered vendors, Meesho has, in the past five odd years, delivered orders in more than 5,000 cities and towns in India.
It has managed to help individual businessmen and small entrepreneurs generate more than Rs 500 crore in revenue in over 4,500 tier 2+ cities.
