Ola to re-enter grocery delivery market, this time through govt-backed ONDC

Bhavish Aggarwal-led Ola is preparing to launch grocery delivery services through the Indian government-backed Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) in the coming days, Moneycontrol reported.

The move comes as part of Ola's broader strategy to expand its presence in the digital commerce ecosystem.

The report said the ride-hailing giant aims to leverage its existing logistics infrastructure to enter the grocery delivery market.

Ola's re-entry into the grocery delivery segment

This isn’t Ola’s first venture into grocery delivery. In July 2015, the Bengaluru-based unicorn launched an online grocery store after introducing a food delivery app in March of the same year.

However, both services were discontinued within nine months without detailed explanations.

Following the significant surge in online users after the COVID-19 outbreak, Ola made a comeback in the grocery delivery sector with Ola Dash in Mumbai and Bengaluru through approximately 15 dark stores. However, Ola shut down Ola Dash and discontinued operations of all its dark stores.

Ola's association with ONDC

Last year, Ola joined ONDC to provide food delivery services. Since then, the company reportedly established itself as the second-largest buyer-side platform for food delivery on ONDC, following Magicpin.

It processes between 15,000 to 20,000 food orders daily and accounts for nearly one-third of the demand in significant markets such as Delhi-NCR and Bengaluru, the report added.

“Our partnership with ONDC is thriving, and we've achieved remarkable 10X growth in recent months. We plan to continue leveraging the ONDC platform to explore new opportunities for our next growth phase,” Moneycontrol cited an Ola spokesperson.