Digital Revolution 2.0: Transforming Rural Women Into Online Entrepreneurs

60-second takeaway

• As champions of small sellers, we often collaborate and partner with state governments and Self-Help Groups (SHGs) to identify women sellers from poor economic backgrounds in rural pockets and handhold them into the world of e-commerce.
• There are many challenges we combat on this mission, including a lack of awareness around e-commerce and poor digital infrastructure.
• For example, many rural women sellers are either unaware of or hesitant to get GST registration; there is a misunderstanding that GST = cash loss. And since businesses cannot sell online without GST, we have been helping different state governments onboard the sellers under their respective National Rural Livelihood Missions (NRLM).
• While onboarding sellers from rural pockets with little to no experience with e-commerce, it is also important to train them to sell successfully on the Meesho platform.
• On the success of our efforts, Sanjeevini — Karnataka State Rural Livelihood Promotion Society (KSRLPS) opines, “(The tie-up) not only helped provide good prices for women artisans’ products and access to a larger market base but also a new identity for their entrepreneurship development.”
• We’re hoping to see similar success in J&K and Telangana, where we are headed with our offline training sessions next.

“Growth is never by mere chance; it is a result of forces working together.” — JC Penney

Small sellers are at the centre of everything we do at Meesho. COVID-19 taught us that these small sellers are more vulnerable to economic shocks if they remain exclusively offline. As India’s only true e-commerce marketplace, we want to be at the forefront of aiding their transition into the online world.

And while our own efforts have helped many first-time e-commerce sellers become successful online, tying up with state governments and leveraging the reach of NRLM has helped us scale our endeavour in various rural pockets.

From weavers to potters and bamboo workers, women sellers with no prior knowledge of e-commerce can sell online through public-private partnerships like ours. For example, more than 50,000 poor and underprivileged women have started micro and small enterprises through Karnataka State Rural Livelihood Mission’s (KSRLM) — Sanjeevini. Meesho’s goal is to help digitise their businesses scattered across districts such as Kolar, Mysore, Tumkur, Hassan and Uttara Kannada in the state.

To this end, we signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Karnataka government in July 2022. Next, we needed to eliminate the obstacles in their way and further train them to sell online successfully.

The GST challenge

Last June, the central government announced that mandatory GST registration would be waived for small online sellers (with turnover under INR 40 lakh). However, with the implementation now scheduled for October 2023, all online sellers would be required to obtain a GSTN — at least until then.

As you would expect, most women who are part of these SHGs do not have GST registration, and nor are they keen to get registered. The reasons:

• Most small sellers are still unaware of why GST is required, and there isn’t enough education about it.
• GST is often required to be filed monthly, quarterly or yearly, and small entrepreneurs do not see the merit in doing this activity multiple times a year.
• The uninitiated assume that GST is very costly and cannot be recovered by simply adjusting the amount to the prices of their products.
• The SHGs are made up of women, most of whom are not financially literate and are intimidated by taxes and paperwork.

Educating a cohort of sellers who are potentially already nervous about making that transition from brick-and-mortar to online isn’t a good idea, so we came up with a solution: Create a common GST account and initiate multiple sellers onto the Meesho platform through the Karnataka government’s brand Sanjeevini. Once they get used to selling on Meesho and get used to the idea of GST, they are encouraged to register for GST for their business.

Sanjeevini — KSRLPS was happy to cooperate with the arrangement. This move “provided good prices for women artisans’ products and access to a larger market base along with a new identity for their entrepreneurship development. The partnership has also increased the economic activity available to and the financial security of rural women business owners. Above all, Sanjeevini-KSRLPS and Meesho are also able to support these families in upholding their traditions and culture to preserve their legacy.”

This initiative has helped onboard women artisans who have been creating handmade tribal jewellery, sarees, home decor and Lavancha handicrafts traditionally as online sellers, helping them sustain these art forms in India.

We replicated this strategy with the Association of Lady Entrepreneurs of India (ALEAP), an organisation under the Telangana government. During our training session in Telangana, we learnt that only seven among the 38 sellers present had registered GST, and most of the remaining sellers had a preconceived notion that GST = incurring a loss. The most viable solution is to get an umbrella GST with ALEAP for all the sellers.

The training

Once the GST challenge was solved, we started our offline training sessions. An expert Meeshoite with a good grasp of the local language typically trains cohorts of 40–50 women sellers, covering everything: What does Meesho do? How to upload a product catalogue? What are the different components of pricing? How to run ads? How to participate in sales? What are the benefits of “Meesho Recommended Prices?” etc. They are also trained to set themselves apart from their competitors and avoid penalties. They are even told about the benefits of opting for our Next Day Delivery (NDD) programme.

The most positive outcome of these sessions has been learning how excited these sellers are about exploring the brand-new avenue of e-commerce. From their pertinent questions about making the right investments and growing their businesses, it’s evident that they’re on the right track.

“I belong to a community of bamboo makers, and we sell most of our products locally. Since joining Meesho, we have visibility among a much wider range of customers who love our traditionally made products. The very first range of products we uploaded on Meesho were all sold out in just a couple of months. We are enjoying our new-found success and want to encourage other traditional artisans like ourselves to grow. By speaking about Meesho at village melas, we have already enabled five small sellers to join Meesho.” — Ashwini, Bamboo artist from Davanagere district of Karnataka.

Meanwhile, many more state governments are keen to join our digital revolution, starting with Jammu & Kashmir. We hope that these partnerships between Meesho and the state governments will be a game-changer in the long run as we continue building India’s only true e-commerce marketplace.

CREDITS

Design: Rahul Prakash

Supported by: Prachi Bhuchar, Vijay Chauhan