American retailer Walmart is launching a pilot program in North Carolina to test its proposed drone delivery service. The company said this week it will kick off its program this week and test deliveries for groceries ordered by customers online.
The program will be tested in the city of Fayetteville, North Carolina. Select grocery items and household products ordered by shoppers in the city will be delivered through piloted drones. The Arkansas-based retailer has partnered with drone company Flytrex which Walmart asked to operate its drone delivery service.
According to Walmart, the drones will be controlled using an uncomplicated "smart and easy" dashboard. The company plans to use the pilot program to gain insights and feedback for its aerial on-demand delivery service.
Walmart customer product executive Tom Ward said in a blog post the implementation of the service would take a while. "We know that it will be some time before we see millions of packages delivered via drone," Ward said. "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." Ward said "one day" Walmart may be delivering millions of packages worldwide using drones.
The company's experimentation with new delivery methods is a result of a big rise in business thanks to the coronavirus pandemic. During the months of government-imposed lockdowns and shelter-in-place orders, Walmart's offline and online sales rose substantially. Over its latest quarter, Walmart revealed its online sales nearly doubled while its same-store sales grew by more than 9 percent.
The launch of the pilot program follows Amazon's announcement it had received safety certification from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration for its autonomous delivery drones. Amazon is currently working to establish its Prime Air delivery division - which will use autonomous drones to deliver goods bought on its website.
Amazon said it would "fully integrate delivery drones into the airspace and work closely with the F.A.A. and other regulators around the world to realize our vision of 30-minute delivery." Walmart has been locked in a yearslong battle for retail dominance with Amazon.
