Ride hailing firm Ola plans to deliver groceries across 20 cities and set up at least 500 dark stores in the next six months, it said in a statement on January 28, soon after rebranding the grocery vertical as Ola Dash.
The company's express grocery delivery arm was earlier called Ola Stores.
Moneycontrol was the first to report that Ola has set aside a budget of Rs 250 crore for the grocery delivery business and would launch it in mid-November ahead of its $2-billion initial public offering.
Ola Dash is currently providing 10 minutes grocery delivery across nine cities. It claims to be having an assortment of 2,500 SKUs across its dark stores.
It is targeting to grow the order size to 500,000 per day by the year end.
In recent interactions with Moneycontrol, both Grofers and Instamart said they had crossed the 1 million orders per week mark and were growing exponentially.
"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. 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," said Anshul Khandelwal, chief marketing officer, Ola.
The range of products available on Ola Dash include fresh produce, snacks, beverages, instant food, home care products, and cooking essentials.
Ola Dash is available on the main Ola app itself, however, unlike rivals like Instamart and Zepto, it does not offer cash on delivery options to customers.
In December, Swiggy also announced plans to invest $700 million in the grocery play over the course of the next few years. Till December, it had 150 dark stores, it plans to add 100 more by February end.
Zepto on the other hand also claims to be having 100 stores and plans to launch 500 such outlets soon.
Ola Dash is also going to lock horns with Reliance-backed Dunzo and Zomato-owned Blinkit.
While Dunzo which recently raised $240 million from Reliance Retail plans to set up 300 dark stores Blinkit claims to be running 300 partner stores from where it delivers items to consumers.
Moneycontrol recently also reported that Zomato as well as rival Swiggy had held talks to acquire younger rival Zepto. According to sources, Zomato approached Zepto with a buyout offer of close to a billion dollars.
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