Photo: Walmart
Despite challenges ranging from regulations to noise, cost, safety, and public acceptance, Walmart continues to push ahead with tests of drone delivery. A new partnership with Wing, a drone-delivery provider owned by Alphabet, Google’s parent company, enables air delivery to an additional 60,000 homes in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area — even for frozen items like ice cream and fragile products like eggs.
The partnership begins in the coming weeks with deliveries under 30 minutes from a Walmart in Frisco. A second hub will open nearby later this year.
Walmart said that over the last two years, it’s completed more than 10,000 deliveries out of 36 stores across seven states, including from drone hubs already operating in the Dallas area with partner DroneUp. A successful Wing partnership could accelerate Walmart’s drone efforts.
Prathibha Rajashekhar, SVP of innovation and automation for Walmart U.S., wrote in the announcement, “With drones that can fly beyond visual line of sight, we’re able to unlock on-demand delivery for customers living within an approximate 6-mile range of the stores that offer the service.”
The reported departure in early August of two key executives from Amazon's Prime Air unit amid stringent regulatory restrictions and crashes was seen as a setback for drone delivery.
In a blog entry earlier this year, however, McKinsey’s analysis found that while regulations need to evolve, if drone operators can manage 20 drones simultaneously, “a single package delivery will cost about $1.50 to $2.” This is in line with the per-package cost for an electric car delivering five packages or any type of van delivering 100 packages in a single trip. CO2 emissions are also expected to be lower.
The bigger hurdle may be consumer acceptance, as a Morning Consult survey from June 2022 found that 57% of American adults have trust issues with drone delivery. Asked about drone-related issues, 80% were concerned about unsuccessful deliveries, 71% about data privacy given drones’ capacity to record property, 66% about air traffic safety, and 65% about job loss.
In a recent column for Progressive Grocer, Yariv Bash, CEO of drove-delivery startup Flytrex, said many concerns have been addressed. He wrote, “As with any innovation, there’s still much work to be done to achieve full consumer acceptance.”