Ola plans to open 200 experience centres amid dropping sales

EV start-up Ola Electric will open more than 200 experience centres across India by March 2023, CEO Bhavish Aggarwal said via a tweet on Sunday.

• Ola's sales have been on the decline for the past few months
• Experience centres may also serve as after-sales touch points

After strongly committing to a digital-only sales model since the launch of its S1 Pro in August 2021, Ola Electric has now said it will open new physical touch points for prospective buyers to experience the product before making the purchase. 

This move comes after a consistent decline in Ola’s sales in the past few months. In May 2022, as per data on the government's VAHAN portal, the start-up registered 9,249 e-scooters, which made it the industry leader for that month. However, the figure was down to just 3,421 units in August. 

The reason for this decline isn’t clear, but the sheer number of customer reports of various issues is likely to have had some effect. We, too, experienced some issues with our own long-term Ola S1 Pro.

So it would appear that these experience centres have been opened to help arrest the falling sales and build customer confidence in the product. The experience centres would enable the company to demonstrate and explain its electric scooters better to customers than it would have through the digital-only sales approach.

Aggarwal’s tweet further said that 20 such experience centres are already operational in India, although he didn’t specify where these centres are located. Reports suggest that these centres will serve as after-sales and service touch points as well, however, Ola Electric is yet to confirm the same.

Do you think experience centres would help Ola Electric boost its sales? Let us know in the comments section below.