Ola Cabs & ONDC launch logistics services

BENGALURU : Ola Cabs has extended its collaboration with the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) to offer last-mile small-box logistics services to buyers and sellers, according to people aware of the matter. It is targeting to take the services live pan-India by as early as January.

The collaboration with ONDC will see Ola Cabs utilising its e-bike taxis as last-mile delivery agents across categories such as medicines, apparel, groceries, etc., said a person aware of the developments.

The partnership could also expand from logistics to providing mobility services via ONDC as well, the person said.

The development comes after Founder of Ola and Ola Electric, Mr. Bhavish Agarwal, posted a picture with newly-appointed CEO Hemant Bakshi, who joined the firm recently after a 15-year stint at Unilever, and Mr. Thomas Koshy, CEO, ONDC at one of the firm’s offices.

“ONDC is the future of commerce in India and we are committing to it big!”, read the post on X (formerly Twitter).

The idea is to extend the deployment of e-bikes to run services such as taxi, parcel delivery and food delivery to enable last mile and intra-city delivery of small box couriers across India. As things stand, it hopes to halve the costs of last mile delivery of small packages in the country, said people aware of the development.

The company, which will first pilot the services in certain cities where Ola e-bike and e-parcel are already active, will eventually look to scale to big-box couriers, and take the capacity to other wheelers as well, added the sources.

Ola’s collaboration with ONDC swung into action in September, to provide food delivery services via its own app. The latest development means Ola Cabs will come onboard as a full-fledged third-party delivery service across categories, in addition to food delivery services.