E-commerce startup Meesho on Wednesday launched a marketplace for logistics solutions – Valmo – that consists of a network of micro entrepreneurs who provide first-mile, last-mile and sorting solutions to sellers on the company’s platform.
In contrast to third-party logistics companies or aggregators such as Shiprocket, Meesho claims its disaggregated network of service providers is cheaper for the sellers by at least 5-6% than other players – and the cheapest in the industry – said Sourabh Pandey, CXO, fulfilment and experience.
“In India, logistics and supply chain remain largely unorganised, consisting of several regional players who serve limited geographies. By partnering with fulfilment centres across the country, Valmo aims to create a national logistics solution by eliminating entry barriers for local players,” the company said in a statement.
For now, Meesho is passing on any cost savings from the disaggretator model to the sellers, hoping to attract more of them to the platform with lower supply-chain costs. The company has a target of onboarding 10 million sellers in the next three years.
Any reduction in Meesho’s operating costs is particularly in focus this year, as the company doubles down on minimizing its losses further and turning profitable on a full-year basis. In FY23, the company was able to halve its losses to Rs 1,675 crore, after reducing its customer acquisition, server and infrastructure costs.
Pandey added that this disaggregated network also allows delivery partners to be located close to users, thereby reducing delivery time. This network is run on a tech stack built by Meesho in collaboration with companies such as ElasticRun, FarEye, LoadShare and Shipsy.
Started just over a year ago, Valmo currently manages over 900,000 orders per day and reaches about 6,000 pin codes across 20 states. Nearly 3,000 micro entrepreneurs are on the network as business partners offering first-mile, last-mile and sorting solutions.
While the network currently handles deliveries from only Meesho sellers, there is a possibility that the company may open it up to other platforms later. For now, Meesho plans to scale the number of micro entrepreneurs on the network to 100,000 and expand to more geographies.
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