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Walmart is expanding drone delivery across the states of Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Texas, Utah, and Virginia this year, potentially enabling it to reach 4 million U.S. households, the company announced on May 24.
In a blog post announcing the expansion with operator DroneUp, the retailer said it is expanding its delivery network to 34 sites by the end of 2022, which will allow it to deliver over 1 million packages by drone in a year.
Customers in those states will be able to order and receive “tens of thousands of eligible items” seven days a week between the hours of 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., including everything from Tylenol to “diapers and hot dog buns,” according to the retail giant.
However, there will be a $3.99 fee and the items can only total 10 pounds in weight so that they can fit safely inside the drone and fly.
Walmart said it has been working on various ways to save customers time and money over the past few years, including home delivery via drone. The company partnered with DroneUp in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic to begin trial deliveries of at-home testing kits.
Last year, it announced it was investing in the drone services provider, which is authorized by the U.S. government across 11 states. Walmart also struck similar deals with Flytrex and Zipline.
The new locations will house a DroneUp delivery team of certified pilots that operate within Federal Aviation Administration guidelines to safely fly the drones.
Once a customer places an order, the item will be fulfilled from the store, packaged, and placed into the drone before being delivered to their home via a cable that “gently lowers the package,” Walmart said.
The first state to receive the drone deliveries will be Arkansas, with the company rolling out the first operations at a store in Bentonville.
“After completing hundreds of deliveries within a matter of months across our existing DroneUp hubs, we’ve seen firsthand how drones can offer customers a practical solution for getting certain items, fast,” wrote David Guggina, senior vice president of innovation and automation at Walmart.
“More importantly, we’ve seen a positive response from our customers that have used the service. In fact, while we initially thought customers would use the service for emergency items, we’re finding they use it for its sheer convenience, like a quick fix for a weeknight meal.”
According to Walmart, roughly 90 percent of Americans live within 10 miles of one of the retailer’s more than 4,700 stores that are stocked with over 100,000 of the most-purchased items, making it uniquely positioned to execute drone deliveries.
While the drone service will apply to general products for now, Tom Walker, founder and CEO of DroneUp told DroneLife the company has big plans for the future, while touting the expansion for creating hundreds of jobs.
“DroneUp has grown from 12 employees in January of 2021, to 208 today—and we expect to be at 650 by end of the year,” Walker said.
“We’ll be able to deploy a drone for aerial inspection, or rapidly deploy drones for first responder or public safety support in a way that hasn’t been available before. These hubs will be manned and ready to go, with the ability to get a drone in the air in a minute.”
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