Ola To Launch Grocery Delivery Via ONDC Soon, Eyes Major Share Of Food Orders On Network

With an eye on diversifying its ecommerce offerings on the back of Open Network for Digital Commerce collaboration, Bhavish Aggarwal led ridesharing unicorn Ola Mobility is now all set to roll out its grocery delivery through the network over the next few days.

As per Moneycontrol’s report, citing a source, “Ola enables more than 30% of ONDC food orders in Bengaluru and Delhi-NCR, in its efforts to capture significant market share of the online food ecosystem in the immediate term. Further, it is also leveraging its core expertise in the logistics domain by offering EV-based logistics services at a highly competitive price to smaller sellers on the ONDC network.”

The report also added that Ola is already the second largest buyer-side platform after Magicpin in the food category, processing 15,000-20,000 food orders per day. 

With its new foray, Ola will be taking on Pai Platforms (Paytm Ecommerce), Swiggy’s Instamart, Blinkit, among others.

Inc42 has reached out to Ola for comments on the development. The story will be updated based on the responses. 

It is pertinent to note that this is not the first time Ola has ventured into grocery delivery. It launched its standalone food delivery app in 2015 with the idea of leveraging its cabs and drivers to deliver groceries alongside. However, it discontinued this offering just nine months after the launch. 

In 2021, the company reintroduced its grocery delivery with Ola Dash in by enabling services across Mumbai and Bengaluru, but wind down the operations after a year. 

This development comes at a time when Ola is working on giving its user base an option to purchase groceries, fashion and apparel via its app,

Moreover, the startup is deepening its ties with ONDC by inking a partnership to offer last-mile logistics services for all categories, including food delivery, grocery shopping and pharmaceuticals.

Meanwhile, ONDC is expanding its services by entering new segments and onboarding new participants. Notably, it clocked a 23% month-on-month increase in the platform’s transactions in May, recording 89 Lakh transactions across retail and ride-hailing segments. 

Startups in the likes of Paytm, Ola, PhonePe, Shiprocket, Delhivery, Dainik Jagran, Uber, IDFC Bank, Kotak, Dunzo, and Tata Neu have already integrated some of their services with the ONDC.