Walmart expands drone delivery program
Walmart expands drone delivery program
Walmart Expands Drone Delivery Service with Wing Partnership
Two years ago, Walmart took a leap into the future by launching its first drone delivery service. What started as a pilot program has now expanded to seven states and 36 stores, with more than 10,000 successful drone deliveries completed. And now, Walmart is ready to take another big step forward and expand its delivery footprint.
In an exciting new partnership, Walmart has joined forces with Wing, a drone delivery service owned by Alphabet, Google’s parent company. Through this collaboration, Walmart plans to bring drone delivery to two additional stores in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, building upon the success of their initial program.
The first store to embrace this innovative service is located on Preston Road in Frisco, just north of Dallas. The second store, yet to be announced, will join the drone delivery network later this year. Within a six-mile radius of these stores, customers will have the convenience of ordering a wide range of products for delivery by drone.
Household essentials, tools, over-the-counter medicines, pantry staples, frozen treats like ice cream, and even delicate items like eggs can now be delivered straight to customers’ homes. As long as the order weighs less than 3 pounds and it is placed during operating hours (10:30 a.m. until 6:30 p.m. every day except Wednesdays), customers can expect their delivery to arrive within just 30 minutes.
One of the remarkable features of this service is that a human doesn’t even need to be present at the store when the drone takes off. Through the innovative auto-loading technology, a person loads a package onto a V-shaped tower, and the drone picks it up when it is ready to make the delivery.
To utilize this service, customers first need to download the Wing app to confirm their location falls within the drone delivery range. Once confirmed, they can select the drone delivery option during the checkout process. At the current drone delivery locations, there is no additional charge for this convenient service. Walmart plans to start making drone deliveries from these two new stores “in the coming weeks.”
While Walmart’s 10,000 drone deliveries may appear to be a modest figure, it’s worth noting that Wing has already made over 300,000 deliveries worldwide, operating in cities like Queensland, Australia. Furthermore, Wing already operates 11 other delivery hubs in the Dallas area, showcasing their commitment to pushing the boundaries of drone delivery.
In an interview earlier this year, Wing expressed its ambition to normalize drone deliveries on a massive scale. The company aims to achieve “store to door” delivery in as little as 15 minutes with 50 times the efficiency of a gas-powered delivery truck by 2024. This grand vision aligns with Walmart’s mission to serve its customers with utmost speed and convenience.
To put the potential impact of this partnership into perspective, consider that a 2019 Walmart blog post estimated that 90% of the American population lived within 10 minutes of a Walmart store. While the drone delivery range may be smaller than this, it is fair to say that over half of the US population resides within six miles of a Walmart store. This signifies the vast potential and the positive impact that drone delivery can have on a significant portion of the country.
As Walmart expands its drone delivery service through its partnership with Wing, it ushers in a new era of convenience and efficiency. The possibilities are endless, and as more customers experience the speed and convenience of drone delivery, it won’t be long before this technology becomes a norm in our daily lives.
Disclaimer: This article is for entertainment purposes only. The information included is fictional and does not represent actual events or partnerships.
