E-commerce firm Meesho's CXO for business Utkrishta Kumar moves on

Utkrishta Kumar, the chief experience officer of CXO, business, at Meesho, is leaving the e-commerce firm after over five years at the firm, according to sources. Kumar, who reports to Meesho co-founder and chief executive officer Vidit Aatrey, is leaving the SoftBank-backed firm to set up his own fintech startup.

"After spending close to five solid years at Meesho, UK (Utkrishta Kumar) has decided to move on from Meesho to pursue entrepreneurship," said Aatrey, in an email to the employees, a copy of which has been reviewed by Business Standard. "He has played an extremely important role in making Meesho what it is today."

Aatrey said that Megha Agarwal, the current CXO for growth at Meesho, will take the mantle from Kumar and be the new CXO for business at the company. As CXO for growth, Agarwal used to handle mandates such as user growth, product quality, and net merchandise value (NMV) retention. Nilesh Gupta will take on the role of general manager for user growth and report to Aatrey. However, Agarwal will continue leading the product quality charter. NMV mainly deals with operations such as customer support, pick-up changes, and supplier management. Sourabh Pandey will lead the NMV mandate at Meesho.

"Utkrishta Kumar has been instrumental in shaping Meesho's business and has played a key role in our success over the years," said a Meesho spokesperson. "As we extend our best wishes for his future endeavours, we welcome Megha Agarwal as CXO for business and Nilesh Gupta as general manager for user growth. With a strong leadership team, we will continue our mission of democratising internet commerce for everyone."

The organisational changes come at a time when Meesho witnessed a record 16 million new app installations during its flagship 'Meesho Mega Blockbuster Sale' live from October 6 to October 15. With 1.2 billion customer visits, categories such as home and kitchen, fashion as well as beauty and personal care garnered more than 72 orders per second. With orders coming in from across the country, small businesses on Meesho witnessed significant growth during the festive sale event. Ahead of the Mega Blockbuster Sale, Meesho has onboarded nearly 200,000 new sellers. Nearly 30,000 sellers became 'lakhpatis' during the sale event.

India's e-tailing sector is poised to experience a fivefold growth, surging from $59 billion in 2022 to an estimated $300 billion by 2030, fuelled by value-seeking 'mass' consumers, states a report by Redseer Strategy Consultants.
 

The report emphasises the burgeoning adoption of e-commerce in Tier-II and beyond cities. This, combined with a growing base of 'mass' consumers and the expansion of third-party logistics (3PL) serviceability, is catalysing shipment volumes. Consequently, these volumes are projected to rise more sharply than gross merchandise value (GMV) growth.

With the festive season, a spike in e-tailing activities is anticipated, bringing 3PL into sharper focus. The Redseer study forecasts a six to eightfold growth in 3PL shipments from 2022 to 2030, rising from two billion in 2022 to a projected 13-17 billion in 2030. From January to August 2023, Meesho took the lead as the principal contributor to e-commerce 3PL shipments in India. Other major players included Flipkart, Ajio, and Amazon, while vertical e-commerce platforms, direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands, and smaller e-tailers accounted for the remaining shipments.

According to a report by financial services firm JP Morgan, Meesho has 120 million long-tail products, of which two-thirds are unique to the company. Moreover, similar products are priced lower on Meesho than on other platforms. The report said that Meesho's strategy is to diversify the product mix with a share of apparel coming down over the last couple of years and strong growth seen in home and kitchen care and baby care products. It relies on third-party logistics rather than captive logistics, as it believes captives are not cost-efficient even though they provide faster delivery. "It enjoys better pricing from third-party logistics since it is their largest customer," said the JP Morgan report. "It expects the cost of delivery to keep trending down as the share of cash on delivery orders decreases. About 50 per cent of traffic is organic now, which has also driven down customer acquisition cost (CAC) significantly."