Walmart piloting new on-demand drone delivery service

Sep 9

Walmart is partnering with the startup Flytrex to pilot a new on-demand drone delivery service. Walmart said on Wednesday it would run a pilot project for delivery of grocery and household products through automated drones, along with end-to-end delivery firm Flytrex, as the U.S. retailer looks to beef up its delivery business.

Walmart said the test would start on Wednesday in Fayetteville, North Carolina, with cloud-controlled drones picking up and dropping off select items.

“We know that it will be some time before we see millions of packages delivered via drone. That still feels like a bit of science fiction”

— Tom Ward, senior vice-president, customer products

The company has accelerated the expansion of its pick-up and delivery services in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, as virus-wary consumers increasingly prefer having items delivered at their doorsteps.

Walmart, whose U.S. online sales doubled in the second quarter, has previously partnered with Ford and self-driving vehicle startups Gatik and Nuro to explore delivery through autonomous vehicles.

Walmart Announcement By Tom Ward, Senior Vice President, Customer Product, Walmart (Sept. 9, 2020)

Years ago, our founder Sam Walton famously said, “I have always been driven to buck the system, to innovate, to take things beyond where they've been.” It remains a guiding principle at Walmart to this day. From being an early pioneer of universal bar codes and electronic scanning cash registers to our work on autonomous vehicle delivery, we’re working to understand how these technologies can impact the future of our business and help us better serve our customers.

Our latest initiative has us exploring how drones can deliver items in a way that’s convenient, safe, and – you guessed it – fast. Today, we’re taking the next step in our exploration of on-demand delivery by announcing a new pilot with Flytrex, an end-to-end drone delivery company.

The pilot launches today in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and focuses on delivering select grocery and household essential items from Walmart stores using Flytrex’s automated drones. The drones, which are controlled over the cloud using a smart and easy control dashboard, will help us gain valuable insight into the customer and associate experience, from picking and packing to takeoff and delivery.

We know that it will be some time before we see millions of packages delivered via drone. That still feels like a bit of science fiction, but we’re at a point where we’re learning more and more about the technology that is available and how we can use it to make our customers’ lives easier. Take for example our autonomous vehicle work with Gatik, Ford and Nuro – we’ve gained loads of valuable insight into how autonomous vehicles fit within our business.

At the end of the day, it’s learnings from pilots such as this that will help shape the potential of drone delivery on a larger scale and, true to the vision of our founder, take Walmart beyond where we’ve been.

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