Ola drawing up a route map to join quick commerce party
Ola Electric prepares to list later this week, founder Bhavish Aggarwal is busy charging up his 14-year-old ride-hailing business, according to people in the know. His latest efforts are directed towards tapping the red-hot quick commerce sector and is Ola’s second attempt at the business.
Ola Cabs parent firm ANI Technologies plans to set up its own dark stores amid rising demand for rapid deliveries, said these people. Dark stores are small neighbourhood warehouses that stock products delivered by these services.
These will be operated by Ola, people briefed on the matter said, adding that robots will be deployed to reduce human involvement. The company also plans to launch its own Unified Payments Interface (UPI) offering for consumers, said the people cited. Aggarwal is likely to unveil these initiatives at its annual Independence Day event on August 15. However, these plans may undergo changes.
“It's a dark store as a service where the whole setup will be delivered with significant automation but there will be some people involved,” said one of the persons. “A few of these initiatives will be displayed as part of Ola’s future roadmap for the next year at a time when the ride-hailing business has plateaued.”
Those operating the dark stores may also deploy Ola electric two wheelers, depending on the arrangement, said another person. “But an ONDC seller, an offline brand or any other business can use this.”
ONDC is the government-backed Open Network for Digital Commerce platform.
Zomato-owned quick commerce
