Meesho sellers are now in the process of registering an e-commerce seller association, closely after starting their out-of-stock strike on January 20.

Sellers are protesting the increased number of wrong deliveries and low claim acceptance rate on Meesho in the past month. While customers get their refund amount when they return the wrong order package, sellers say they neither receive the correct product back nor are they able to claim compensation for the lost product. 

According to a seller who spoke to businessline, “Today, if we raise 10 claims for wrong products being returned to us, only 1-2 claims are getting accepted. The claim acceptance rate has significantly reduced in the past month after Meesho transferred the claim management authority to courier companies.”

Third-party logistic

Meesho does not have its own logistics arm and depends on third-party logistic companies like ElasticRun, and XpressBees, among others to deliver orders. Meesho Sellers have created four WhatsApp groups to discuss their issues, with each group having over 1,000 members. 

Meesho has rolled out a set of new policies recently.  First is the secure packaging policy, under which sellers can opt for unique barcoded packaging. This packaging offers real-time tracking of the order. The second policy is allowing sellers to choose their preferred courier partner for order returns based on their specific needs. Sellers will be given various parameters and metrics like ‘Average Return Time’, ‘Costing’ and ‘Claims Raised’ of the courier partners to make this decision.

More accountability

According to a source close to the development, “the company hopes that such policies will bring more accountability in the system. As more order volumes go towards the courier partner which has a better process, other courier partners will also be pushed towards implementing better processes,”

He added that these changes are expected to take a few weeks time for every stakeholder to start seeing the benefits of these policies. “This is like a flywheel, once 3PL (third-party logistics) players start understanding that this has an impact on their own business, they will put in the right processes. Sellers will also understand that if they do things like better packaging, and use the right kind of evidence towards claims, they will have much better surety on things coming back the right way,” the source noted. 

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