Walmart Goes Big With Drone Delivery Expansion

For nearly two years, Alphabet’s drone company, Wing, has managed deliveries for a handful of Walmart locations in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Customers in the metro region can click “checkout” on a small order on Walmart’s website or app and, within an average delivery window of 19 minutes, see a drone buzz above their lawn or backyard and lower a delivery box on a tether. Now both companies say the service is ready for serious expansion. They announced Thursday that Wing’s drone delivery service will roll out to 100 additional US stores in the next year, including Walmart locations in Atlanta, Charlotte, Houston, Orlando, and Tampa. The companies say the expansion will give “millions” of homes access to drone delivery within 30 minutes or less, making the drone delivery network the largest in the country. The expansion will test shoppers’ enthusiasm for super-quick deliveries—and communities’ interest in sharing airspace with a new kind of delivery vehicle. It will also likely help ... Read full article.