Alongside larger ecommerce giants such as Flipkart, and Amazon, a parallel e-commerce model has emerged in India. It is centered around drop- shipping, a retailing model where a seller doesn’t have to keep any inventory. They instead ‘resell’ products from suppliers who store their inventory in warehouses or factories. These resellers usually sell to a recurring and loyal base of customers, who find interest in long-tail products. The idea is to sell large volumes of rare products to customers, hence the supply of such products come from specialised manufacturers. But when covid-induced lockdown was announced in the country, Bengaluru-based Meesho, which offers a social selling platform, connecting suppliers and resellers, found itself heading towards a complete supply chain disruption for almost 4 months.
Founded in 2015 by Sanjeev Barnwal, and Vidit Aatrey, the company currently has a network of over 2 million resellers, of which 80% are women. Meesho’s resellers usually…