Delivering a package has never been easier! American drone delivery company, Zipline, recently unveiled its lightweight autonomous home delivery drone. The company claims that its latest compact drones are capable of delivering goods to precise locations. And, that location could even be on top of a customer’s dining table. The small drones unveiled by Zipline can deliver a variety of packages, ranging from food orders to medical prescriptions or any essential supply, right to the doorstep. According to Keller Rinaudo Clifton, the company was established to bring forward a logistics system that serves humanity. Zipline has an exemplary journey to share. The company has been delivering medicines, blood, and vaccines to remote locations across Rwanda for the past seven years. Zipline has been commended for its use of technology to aid medical emergencies during the pandemic. As of April 2022, drones from Zipline have made over 20 million miles of flights for over 2,75,000 commercial deliveries. Zipline’s phenomenal success throws light on the rising prominence of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones, a technology that has been finding resonance with a variety of industries. Drones And Ecommerce Speed is of essence in ecommerce. The success of any business depends on the speed at which it is able to deliver its products and services to the target market. This is perhaps why “quick commerce” delivery services have witnessed phenomenal growth over the last few decades. In the last few years, the proliferation of the internet has led to the widespread adoption of food delivery services and several e-commerce platforms that deliver orders to the customer’s doorstep almost instantly Today, a vast majority of users across the world engage with various e-commerce and food delivery apps. Packages arriving safely and on time is seen as a hallmark of the ideal delivery service. It is for this reason that more and more companies are innovating to offer the most efficient delivery services. In 2013, while speaking during the popular show 60 Minutes, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said that his company was planning rapid delivery of products via lightweight commercial unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Amazon's announcement triggered a backlash and also saw mixed reactions. However, that moment is seen as a tipping point for the later developments related to drone delivery systems worldwide. A look at some of the biggest players in commercial drone deliveries UPS American multinational United Parcel Service (UPS) is a prominent name in the shipping and supply chain management domain. The 117-year-old company created waves during the Covid-19 pandemic when it introduced drones to deliver vaccines. The company’s UPS Flight Forward made vaccine deliveries using drones for the medical centre - Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist in North Carolina. UPS implemented a cold chain packaging system that was specifically designed for drones. It was the first vaccine delivery system that used drones in the US. Domino’s drones for pizza delivery In November 2016, Domino’s Pizza delivered Peri-Peri Chicken, and Chicken and Cranberry Pizzas to the backyard of a home in Whangaparaoa, about 20 miles from Auckland, New Zealand. The company said that the flying pizza landed at around 11:19 am after a flight of less than 5 minutes. According to the latest reports, the Pizza brand has now entered a contract with its former drone technology partner Sky Drop. The new partnership aims to launch the second stage of their commercial drone delivery. Alphabet’s Wing drone Wing is Google parent Alphabet’s drone delivery service which was introduced in partnership with Walgreens and FedEX. While the drone has been known to carry out select deliveries from FedEX, it has delivered health and wellness products and medicines for Walgreens. Earlier this month, it was reported that the Alphabet-owned company will expand its drone delivery services across numerous cities this year. According to CEO Adam Woodworth, Wing will be a "decentralised, automated system that will support high-volume drone deliveries across a major metro area or a more sparsely populated region.” The company which has piloted its automated delivery system across cities around the world is among one of the companies that has been working towards last-mile delivery. Amazon drone delivery As mentioned above, Amazon was among the first to initiate conversations surrounding commercial drone deliveries. In 2019, at the Amazon re:MARS conference, the e-commerce giant announced plans to launch its drone delivery service, Prime Air. The company reportedly has plans to deliver orders to its customers within 30 minutes with its Prime Air service. If this happens, Prime Air will overshadow the existing two-day Prime delivery service and two-hour Prime Now deliveries. Reportedly, the Prime Air Delivery program will use autonomous drones powered by GPS systems. Considering the cost of last-mile delivery, Prime Air with its instant delivery is likely to give the e-commerce giant an edge over its competitors in the logistics segment. Flytrex The company based in the US recently released its drone delivery customer trends for 2022. According to the report, the company delivered over 85,000 items via drones across 21,350 orders. The drones from Flytrex reported an average time of 3:32 minutes from take-off to delivery. The startup claimed that it witnessed a seven-fold increase in orders flown. Most of the delivery items were fast food and groceries. Flytrex is anticipating more growth in the coming days. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Flytrex Drone Delivery (@flytrex) Wingcopter Wingcopter GmbH is a Germany-based developer of delivery drones. Recently, the company was in the news for its development partnership with ZAL Center of Applied Aeronautical Research GmbH. Wingcopterand ZAL are currently exploring the potential of green hydrogen to power Wingcopter's delivery drones. Wingcopter has produced W178 and W198 commercial drones. They are capable of delivering and collecting cargo including medical samples and supplies. The above are a handful of players that have made significant headwinds in a short period. However, more tech companies are making their way into the commercial drone segment with each passing day. In India, several tech firms have been developing drones with dynamic use cases. "With the next generation 5G enabled drones, commercial drone deliveries will experience a paradigm shift in the upcoming days. Challenges like regulations and policies need to be looked upon considering the huge potential of the Indian Market," said Bodhisattwa Sanghapriya, Founder and CEO of IG Drones. IG Drones recently launched India's first 5G-enabled drone - IG Drones Skyhawk VTOL that can carry up to 10 kg load and can also be operated via satellite. When it comes to India, drones delivering food or groceries is still a long shot. However, the rapid pace at which research and development is taking shape in the UAV segment will hopefully give Indian e-commerce companies respite in the future.
