When you’re home with a bad cold, going to the store is probably the last thing on your mind. A new FedEx partnership wants to make it possible for cold medicine, cough drops and tissues to fall from the sky.
FedEx Express, Walgreens and a boutique in Virginia are the latest names to join the race to use drones for deliveries of consumer goods, for everything from chocolate and Band-Aids to clothing, medication, groceries and hardware supplies.
Earlier this month, a FedEx drone completed the first residential delivery to a home in Christiansburg, Va., kicking off a trial period where eligible residents can order goods through an app and have them dropped off on in their yard or driveway within minutes.
The first item delivered — a birthday present from husband to wife — was a purple winter vest from Findlay-based retailer Dick’s Sporting Goods.
FedEx partnered with Wing, a technology company based in Palo Alto, Calif., that operates the drones in the United States, Finland and Australia. The partnership is also a part of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration Pilot Program.
Through more than 80,000 test runs, Wing has helped deliver coffee, ice cream, sandwiches, toothpaste, candles and many more items from 22 retailers.
In Christiansburg, Wing is delivering medications through its partnership with Walgreens as well as popcorn, greeting cards and notepads through Sugar Magnolia, a boutique in nearby Blacksburg. Tom Raub, co-owner of Sugar Magnolia, said the store operators chose to participate because they hoped it would be a way to bring in more customers who can’t make it to the physical store.
“With the retail industry changing so substantially and requiring a more experiential approach, we saw drone delivery as a wonderful experience for our customers,” Mr. Raub said. “People are really excited to personally experience it. It’s exciting for adults, but it’s crazy exciting for kids.”
So far, packaged chocolate and boxes of chocolate truffles have been the biggest seller, he said.
Mr. Raub said his company signed a contract with Wing for the one-year pilot program but could not disclose the details. Wing, which is affiliated with Google through its parent company Alphabet, also said it could not disclose the terms of agreements with businesses.
To place an order, customers must download the Wing app, where they can browse a list of items available for delivery. Once they make a purchase, Wing software can determine a safe route for the drone to fly from the company’s delivery office to the resident’s home.
The drone, which runs on rechargeable batteries, should be able to make the trip in a few minutes, according to Wing. The fastest recorded trip is two minutes and 47 seconds.
The drone can travel up to 70 miles per hour and can complete a 12-mile round trip. Qualifying residents in Christiansburg must live within a 6-mile radius of Wing’s delivery office.
Once the drone reaches a home, it lowers from a cruise height of 150 feet to 23 feet above ground, unspools a long tether and releases a small box held by a claw-like clip. The customer’s items are packed in the box.
The drones can take packages up to 3.3 pounds.
A rush to the skies
With this delivery, FedEx, which is based in Memphis, Tenn., headquarters its ground unit in Moon, beat out many competitors working to make drones a routine part of their businesses, including both ride-hailing service Uber and e-commerce giant Amazon. UPS recently announced a partnership with CVS to develop a prescription drug delivery service using drones.
And the delivery wars continue on all fronts. Walmart announced this month it would begin delivering groceries to customers’ homes and put them away in their fridge. Best Buy said Tuesday it is launching next-day delivery.
The e-commerce market is expected to grow in the United States from 50 million to 100 million packages per day by 2026, and those packages are increasingly going short distances to residences, FedEx said in its September earnings call.
“Innovation has been part of the FedEx DNA since day one, and we are always looking for new and better ways to deliver the world to our customer’s doorsteps,” Don Colleran, president and CEO of FedEx Express, said in a prepared statement.
The newest development with drone deliveries will “test the latest innovation in the last mile of a residential package delivery,” he said.
Based on results from a study produced for Wing, commercial drone deliveries could have a big impact. In Queensland, Australia, where Wing had its first drone delivery in 2014, retail sales could increase by $400 million, consumers could save $60 million on delivery costs and CO2 emissions could be reduced by 100,000 metric tons by 2030, the study found.
Lauren Rosenblatt: lrosenblatt@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1565
First Published: October 29, 2019, 12:00 p.m.
