The rapid growth of the e-commerce market in India has opened up new business opportunities for millions of Indian citizens all over the country. At the same time, new and innovative e-commerce platforms are often created to help expand the possibilities of trading without being physically present in the market.
Meesho and Flipkart are also such e-commerce marketplaces that have provided a friendly platform for millions of sellers to sell their products to buyers all over the country. Even though both allow a wide range of product categories to be sold by legitimate brands, the rules and business structures are very different from one another.
Here are the differences between the two leading Indian e-commerce platforms,
Eligibility for Registration
Anyone can sell on Meesho and Flipkart as long as they have legal documents to start a business.
The following documents are needed to start selling on Meesho,
- A GSTIN
- An active bank account
- Mobile number
- Email ID
To sell on Flipkart, the following documents are required,
- PAN card
- Bank account in the name of the individual or business
- GST registration
- Proof of identification
- Address proof documents
- A valid email ID
- A valid contact number
- Bank statement or canceled cheque of the registered account
Product Listing
Listing your product and uploading catalogs are very easy on both sites. Flipkart provides Flipkart Seller Dashboard while Meesho provides Meesho Supplier Panel, where sellers can easily upload their listings and access the catalogs anytime they want.
In the case of Flipkart, a minimum of 1 product can be listed whereas in Meesho at least 3 to 4 products are suggested to upload. The structure of the item title, description as well as pricing is all the same. Meesho’s special feature, the Price Recommendation Tool is a very useful and effective tool that suggests the best price for each of their products after analyzing the pricing of similar products from other sellers which helps the user compete with fellow merchants. Also, the NDD (Next Day Dispatch) feature of Meesho is often used by sellers to promote and advertise their listings.
Shipping
Both Meesho and Flipkart provide logistics partners to deliver the items from the seller to the buyer’s doorstep. All you have to do is pack the products properly once the order is received and hand them over. They will responsibly deliver them all over India.
Commission Fee
If you want to choose a platform based on the commission fee, the obvious answer is Meesho. Meesho is the first e-commerce website to introduce a ‘Zero Commission Fee’ policy, from registering to order cancellations everything is absolutely free without any hidden charges.
On the other hand, even though the listing is free, on each sale, the commission fee of Flipkart is either charged on the product value on a percentage basis, or a fixed fee is charged based on slabs of order values. However, Flipkart holds full responsibility for any damage or misplacement of the product during the transit therefore, the platform does not charge any fee in such case.
Payment
Since Meesho does not take any charge for being a seller on their platform, the full payment is transferred to the seller’s bank account within 7 days of the product delivery including COD orders.
Flipkart takes 7-15 days from the date of sale to transfer the money to the seller through bank transfer or UPI transfer with Rs.1,00,000 UPI limit per day after subtracting the commission fee.
Conclusion
It is always important to know about the website and its pros and cons before listing your products. Both platforms provide some similar and some different features that may pique your interest. See what suits you best and fulfills your needs first. There is no clear winner in the battle of selling on Meesho Vs Flipkart, both have their own wins and losses so choose wisely.