Walmart embarked on a journey to make the convenience of drone delivery a reality for customers two years ago. Throughout the past 24 months, drone delivery has grown across seven states and 36 stores, completing more than 10,000 safe deliveries.
Today, they announced they are continuing to expand drone delivery by teaming up with Wing, an on-demand drone delivery provider powered by Google’s parent company, Alphabet. The service will be offered from two stores in the Dallas metro area in the coming months. This partnership will enable Walmart to reach an additional 60,000 homes.
According to Wing, their drones are reliable, fast, and safe. “They cruise at 65 mph and use a tether to gently deliver even delicate items – like a carton of eggs – to very precise locations outside customer homes in urban and suburban environments.”
Walmart shared in a press release, “Working with Wing directly aligns with our passion for finding innovative and eco-friendly last-mile delivery solutions to get customers the items they want, when they want them. 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 Walmart Supercenter at 8555 Preston Road in Frisco, Texas, will be the first to launch, joining the existing network of 11 drone hubs already operating in the Dallas area. Once operations begin, customers can download the Wing app from the App Store or Google Play and enter their address to determine if their home is within the Wing drone delivery range. Customers will be able to order items like frozen treats (when those ice cream cravings hit), household essentials, last-minute meal solutions like macaroni and cheese, and even fragile items like eggs.
You can learn more about Wing’s operations and how they are teaming up to deliver convenience to customers on the Wing blog.
“This is an exciting next step for our customers, as it provides even more access to a convenient, innovative and – most importantly – super speedy way to get the items they need. The outlook is clear for drone delivery: The sky really is the limit.”
