India’s e-commerce space is usually thought to be a face-off against Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart, but an Indian player has quietly managed to deliver more volumes than either of them.
Meesho is ahead of both Amazon and Flipkart in average daily orders, a report by CSLA says. From April to December 2024, Meesho received 4.9 million daily orders on average. In comparison, Flipkart received 3.6 lakh orders, while Amazon received 3.3 million orders.
The three biggest players were followed by two Flipkart-owned entities with 0.6 million orders each — fashion portal Myntra and social commerce platform Shopsy. These were followed by Reliance’s fashion arm Ajio, which clocked 0.2 million orders, and cosmetics and beauty portal Nykaa with 0.1 million orders.
Meesho seems to be ahead of Flipkart, even if one were to include orders from Shopsy and Myntra to its numbers. These are impressive results for a company that was founded in 2015, seven years after Flipkart was founded. But Meesho didn’t look to compete directly with Amazon or Flipkart or Snapdeal — it instead targeted small towns and cities, and focused on unbranded goods that were sold by local sellers through social media. Meesho was able to grow quickly in a segment that was underserved by the big players in Amazon and Flipkart.
Meesho thus flew somewhat under the radar — its products were rarely used by urban consumers, but it managed to build a formidable user and seller base in small-town and rural India. Other companies, like Snapdeal, too tried to pivot to similar unbranded products and small-town users, but haven’t managed to clock similar numbers.
But while Meesho might have the most e-commerce orders in India, its GMV is lower than those of Flipkart or Amazon, thanks to the lower value of the items it sells. In 2024, Flipkart had a GMV of $8.5 billion, while Meesho’s was around $5 billion. Also, Meesho might have a smaller margin on its products than Flipkart and Amazon, as it looks to offer the lowest prices. And these daily order numbers might need to be adjusted for returns, which can be a significant part of e-commerce orders in India. But netting nearly 5 million orders a day is a significant achievement, and goes to show that it’s possible to build a formidable presence in industries which might appear saturated at first glance by focusing on niches that other players might have ignored.