Meesho Ratings and Account Health: What Drags Them Down and How to Recover
Meesho ratings and account health usually fall for three reasons: the product does not match the listing, orders are dispatched late or cancelled, and returns pile up. Meesho does not publish its cut-offs on a page we could read, so the way back is to fix the causes, track your own numbers weekly and keep your GST returns in step.
- Low ratings cost you twice: fewer buyers see the catalog, and the buyers who do order send more parcels back.
- Meesho's supplier site refused our request on 13 Nov 2026, so this article prints no rating threshold, penalty or deadline. Read the current ones in your supplier panel.
- Most bad ratings trace back to size, colour, quality or packing. Each has a specific fix.
- Posting reviews about your own products while posing as a buyer is barred under the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020.
- Every return must reduce the sales you report in GSTR-1. A bad month for returns is also a GST month to check carefully.
In this guide
Why does Meesho care so much about ratings?
Meesho sells mostly unbranded goods to buyers who cannot touch the product before paying. Ratings are the buyer's only signal of trust. If low-rated products keep showing up, buyers stop ordering, and every seller suffers. So the platform pushes poorly rated catalogs down and, in bad cases, takes them off. In early 2024, news reports quoted Meesho saying it had removed a large number of low-quality products and was cutting the visibility of low-rated ones.
Account health is the wider picture. Think of it as Meesho's view of you as a supplier: ratings, returns, late dispatch, cancellations and policy breaks taken together. Which numbers count and where the lines sit can change, so check the quality and performance sections of your panel rather than any figure you read on a blog.
What drags your rating down, and the fix for each
| Cause | What the buyer says | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Size runs small or large | "Did not fit", "size chart wrong" | Measure three pieces from each lot and correct the chart; add the model's size to the photos |
| Photos better than the product | "Not as shown", "colour different" | Shoot the actual piece in daylight; drop filters and borrowed images |
| Poor stitching or material | "Cheap quality", "torn after one wash" | Check a sample from every new supplier lot; stop the catalog if a lot is bad |
| Damaged in transit | "Broken", "packet open" | Use the right size bag, inner wrap for anything fragile, tamper-evident packing |
| Late dispatch or cancellation | "Took too long", or no rating at all because the order never came | Keep stock counts true; mark out of stock rather than cancel |
| Wrong item packed | "Received different product" | Pack against the label, one order at a time, with SKU codes on shelves |
How to recover, step by step
- Find the worst catalogs. Sort your catalogs by rating and by return share. Usually three or four products cause most of the damage.
- Read the actual reviews and return reasons for those products, not just the star average. Group them under the causes in the table above.
- Pause what you cannot fix this week. A product that keeps drawing one-star reviews hurts the rest of your account while it stays live.
- Fix the listing or the product. New size chart, true photos, a better supplier lot, stronger packing.
- Tighten dispatch. Ship within the time your panel shows and keep stock counts correct so you never cancel for being out of stock.
- Claim for wrong or damaged returns with an unboxing video and photos. The method is in how to file a wrong return claim.
- If a catalog is blocked or your account is restricted, raise a ticket from the supplier panel. Say what went wrong, what you changed and attach proof.
- Track the same numbers every week for at least two months. Ratings recover slowly, because old reviews stay in the average.
A worked example: what poor ratings really cost
Pooja sells nightwear at a taxable value of Rs 500 a piece, with GST at 5% taken for illustration. She ships 400 orders a month. One product with a wrong size chart pushes her returns to 22%, or 88 parcels. Assume Rs 70 forward shipping and Rs 80 reverse shipping on each returned order.
| Item | At 22% returns | At 12% returns |
|---|---|---|
| Returned parcels | 88 | 48 |
| Shipping lost on returns (Rs 150 each) | Rs 13,200 | Rs 7,200 |
| GST if returns are not deducted in GSTR-1 (Rs 25 each) | Rs 2,200 | Rs 1,200 |
Fixing one size chart saves her about Rs 6,000 a month in shipping alone, before counting the extra orders that come when the rating climbs. And if her GSTR-1 shows the gross sales without the returns, she pays Rs 2,200 of GST on goods that came back. That is money you can recover only by correcting the return, so get it right the first time. How returns are shown is explained in sales returns in GSTR-1.
Where account health meets GST
A run of returns changes three things on the tax side. Your taxable sales for the month go down. The TCS Meesho collects, 0.5% of net taxable sales, goes down with them. And the figures Meesho reports to the department should still agree with what you file. If you report gross sales while Meesho reports net, the TCS on the portal and your GSTR-1 will not match, and you will spend time explaining a gap that was only returns. See TCS on cancelled and returned orders.
The mistake sellers usually make
They try to push the average up instead of fixing the product. Asking friends to order and rate, or buying reviews, is the classic shortcut. Under rule 6 of the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020, a seller must not pose as a consumer to post reviews about its own goods. Marketplaces also watch for it, and a ban hurts far more than a low rating.
The second mistake is re-uploading the same product as a fresh catalog to escape old reviews. Marketplaces generally treat duplicate listings as a breach, and the cause of the bad reviews comes along with the product. For where ratings sit among the other things that matter as you grow, see our Meesho Seller Growth Hub.
Sources
- Meesho supplier site
- News report, 30 January 2024: Meesho delists low-quality products and cuts visibility of low-rated items (checked 13 Nov 2026)
- LiveLaw: commentary on the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020, rule 6 (checked 13 Nov 2026)
- Department of Consumer Affairs: Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020
- Notification 15/2024-Central Tax: TCS rate under section 52 (checked 13 Nov 2026)
How AprilTax can help
When returns swing from month to month, the GSTR-1 is where mistakes creep in. The free GSTR-1 tool from AprilTax reads the sales reports you download from Meesho, Amazon or Flipkart, prepares the GSTR-1 tables after returns, runs about 30 checks and matches the TCS your marketplaces reported. You upload the JSON file on the GST portal yourself.
Frequently asked questions
What lowers a Meesho seller's rating?
What rating does Meesho require to keep a catalog live?
How long does it take for ratings to recover?
My catalog was blocked. What should I do?
Can I ask friends to order and give good ratings?
Do returns affect my GST?
Does a wrong return claim help my rating?
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