Aug 08, 2024 08:37 AM IST
The Bhavish Aggarwal company is also likely to launch its own Unified Payments Interface (UPI) offering for consumers.
Ola Cabs may move to the quick commerce sector as it parent company ANI Technologies is planning to set up its own dark stores as demand for rapid deliveries grows in India, Economic Times reported citing unnamed sources. Dark stores are small neighbourhood warehouses which are used to stock products that are delivered by these services. These will be operated by Ola and robots will be deployed to reduce human involvement, people in the know told the outlet.
The Bhavish Aggarwal company is also likely to launch its own Unified Payments Interface (UPI) offering for consumers, the report added. Announcements related to the same are likely to be made at Ola’s annual Independence Day event on August 15, the report added.
A person in know told ET, “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. 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 dark stores may also deploy Ola electric two wheelers, depending on the arrangement “but an ONDC seller, an offline brand or any other business can use this”, the report cited an unnamed source as saying.
Another source said as per the outlet, “This is another attempt from Ola to ride the quick commerce wave after it had launched Ola Dash on as an end-to-end quick commerce service and shut it in 2022. There is going to be lot more demand for warehouses and better management given the demand for fast delivery for a majority of ecommerce segments.”
This comes as Zomato-owned quick commerce company Blinkit said it plans to have 2,000 dark stores by the end of 2026 from the 639 in the June quarter. Zepto is also doubling its dark stores to 700 by March 2025 compared with 1,000 for Blinkit during the same time.