Ola plans to open 200 experience centres amid dropping sales

    Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal said 20 experience centres are already operational in India.

    Published On Sep 19, 2022 05:50:00 PM

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    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.

     

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    Comments

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    Vikramjeet Ghosh - 577 days ago

    No it will not. You do not get a second chance. The brand is written off in the minds of prospects due to the thermal incidents. Now this is onto phase two with a changed strategy. It will not work unless these are offered at sub 1 lakh pricing. All in all it's the brand that has taken a solid beating and it will take persistent efforts to get to volumes. Ola also has not responded well to the voice of the Customer and a new process needs to be established for customer satisfaction if OLA wants to succeed

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