Ola, India’s largest mobility platform has announced expansion plans of it’s quick commerce service- Ola Dash. In next six months, Ola Dash aims to expand its dark store network to 500 dark stores spread across 20 cities, making it the largest dark store network in India. The term dark store refers to a retail outlet or distribution centre that caters exclusively for online shopping.
The move puts Bhavish Aggarwal-led Ola in competition with players such as Reliance-backed Dunzo Amazon, Walmart-owned Flipkart, Swiggy, Zomato, Tata-backed Bigbasket and quick grocery delivery platform Zepto.
Ola Dash currently services 9 cities (Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata, Jaipur and Lucknow) through its ‘Store to Door’ service in 10 minutes, spread across 200 dark stores, offering an assortment of over 2500 SKUs (stock keeping units). Ola aims to grow the business, taking the order size to more than 500,000 per day by the year end.
“Ola has been a leader in the on-demand mobility business for more than a decade. Our advanced geolocation tech, coupled with very low cost of customer acquisition gives us a unique advantage to bring the benefits of mobility to all,” said Anshul Khandelwal, chief marketing officer, Ola. “Our quick commerce service is an essential part of our connect with customers as they rely on technology and online service to fulfill their daily needs. Over the next few months, we will be expanding our reach and presence to more cities and customers.”
The range of products available on Ola Dash include fresh produce, snacks and beverages, instant food, home care products, fruits and vegetables, cooking essentials etc.
Available on the Ola app, Ola Dash is an expansion of the New Mobility vision that now covers a wider set of customer needs. These range from multi-modal ride hailing offerings to vehicle commerce to crafting unique food experiences with Ola foods and now quick commerce with Ola Dash. Ola said it is making urban mobility available on-demand for over a billion people across 3 continents.
According to an industry report by Redseer, the addressable market for quick commerce is projected to be over $75 billion by 2025, creating a multi-billion dollar opportunity for players tapping this market.
This month,Dunzo, the Google-backed quick commerce player, raised $240 million in its latest round of funding. The investment was led by Reliance Retail Ventures Limited, with participation from existing investors.
Quick commerce platform Zepto, which was launched almost 6 months back by two teenage Stanford dropouts, recently raised $100 million in its Series C round at a valuation of $570 million.
This month, food-delivery giant Swiggy has raised $700 million in Invesco-led new funding, which, according to sources, has made the outfit a decacorn, almost doubling its valuation to $10.7 billion. This fundraise will also enable Swiggy to accelerate growth on the core platform and make meaningful investment to grow Instamart, its quick commerce grocery service which remains well-positioned to continue to lead the emerging space and set to reach an annualised gross merchandise value (GMV) run rate of $1 billion in the next three quarters.
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