Walmart is piloting on-demand drone delivery

Global retailer Walmart is piloting on-demand drone delivery in North Carolina, US in collaboration with drone delivery company Flytrex.

“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,” said Tom Ward, Senior Vice President, Customer Product, Walmart.

The pilot focuses on delivering select grocery and household essential items from Walmart stores using Flytrex’s automated drones in Fayetteville, North Carolina. “The drones, which are controlled over the cloud using a smart and easy control dashboard, will help us gain valuable insights into the customer and associate experience, from picking and packing to take off and delivery,” Ward explained, as Walmart is piloting on-demand drone 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 insights 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,” he concluded.

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RetailME Bureau