Walmart is expanding drone deliveries across six states in partnership with the Virginia-based drone delivery startup, DroneUp. The retail giant has run various drone delivery pilots over the past couple of years with three drone operators across various locations. The company worked with Flytrex to deliver groceries and household products in Fayetteville, North Carolina and launched a pilot project with California-based Zipline to deliver health and wellness products in Pea Ridge, Arkansas. The company has also tested delivering at-home Covid-19 test kits with Quest Diagnostics and DroneUp in Las Vegas and Cheektowaga, New York.
Walmart started its first drone delivery operations with DroneUp last year in Farmington, Arkansas. The company also announced that two other towns in the state - Rogers and Bentonville - will also be eligible for the service in the near future. Walmart is also investing heavily in drone deliveries, having picked up a significant equity stake in DroneUp last year as part of its plans to compete with the likes of Amazon and Google. While Amazon's Prime Air Deliveries is still struggling to get off the ground, Google has been expanding its Wing drone delivery footprint across the country and around the world.
By the end of this year, Walmart expects to expand its drone delivery service to include at least 34 sites across Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Texas, Utah, and Virginia. In a press release on Tuesday, the company said that the expansion will enable up to 4 million households in these states to order various products to be delivered by drones. As an example of eligible drone delivery items, Walmart says everything from over-the-counter drugs like Tylenol, as well as diapers and hot dog buns, can be delivered via drones. To be eligible, orders must be placed between 8AM and 8PM and weigh less than 10lbs in total. Each drone delivery will cost $3.99.
Drone Delivery Remains A Niche Service
As for how the drone deliveries will work, Walmart says that when the company receives an order, its employees will pack the product into a box and then secure that box to a drone. A pilot will then fly the drone to the customer's address and drop the box on their front lawn. The company is also setting an ambitious target for its drone delivery service, saying that the expansion will allow it to do more than one million drone deliveries in a year.
Drone deliveries have long been talked-about as the potential next big thing. However, beneath all the marketing blitz, it has remained mostly a niche service available at select locations for select products. A case in point is Amazon, which announced drone deliveries in 2013 but is yet to start a commercial service, largely due to massive safety concerns. According to a Bloomberg report from last month, the company's drones were involved in five crashes over the course of a four-month period, delaying the commercial launch of the service indefinitely.
Then there's Alphabet's Wing that runs drone delivery services in a handful of towns across the U.S. and around the world, including Christiansburg, Virginia; Helsinki, Finland; and Canberra, Australia. However, the company is facing massive hurdles in expansion, thanks largely to opposition from communities and stifling legislation. The company also had to shut down its services temporarily in Australia last year when its drones were being attacked by ravens, magpies, hawks, eagles, and other large birds while flying to and from their delivery locations. Walmart would be hoping that its drone delivery service has better luck than either Amazon or Google.
Source: Walmart