Walmart expands drone delivery to 5 southern cities
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A Wing drone. Photo: Worth Sparkman/Axios
Walmart plans to start delivering items by drone in five major cities, the company announced Thursday from its new headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas. The markets are Atlanta; Charlotte, North Carolina; Houston, Texas; and Orlando and Tampa, Florida.
The big picture: The expansion is the retailer's latest move to tap technology to get goods to customers faster and easier, and it has real bottom line consequences for the retailer.
- "When we see a customer adopt fast delivery, their spend with Walmart doubles, and then when they use it four times, spend triples," the company's Chief Operating Officer Kieran Shanahan said Thursday.
The latest: Working with drone provider Wing, Walmart will launch the drone service at 100 stores, building on existing operations in Northwest Arkansas and Dallas-Fort Worth.
- Wing drones can fly up to 6 miles from their store.
Zoom in: The NWA service is now only available in Pea Ridge, via Zipline, a Walmart spokesperson told Axios.
- More NWA locations will come soon, but no details are yet available, she said.
Zoom out: Wing has a designation from the FAA allowing pilots to operate drones outside a human's line-of-sight, which ultimately means they can deliver to a larger radius from a store and use fewer people.
Between the lines: The service will be free when customers order through the Wing app.
- Items weighing up to 2.5 pounds can be delivered, but Wing is working on doubling the payload capacity.
What they're saying: "As we look ahead, drone delivery will remain a key part of our commitment to redefining retail," Greg Cathey, senior vice president of Walmart U.S. Transformation and Innovation, said in a news release. "We're pushing the boundaries of convenience to better serve our customers, making shopping faster and easier than ever before."
Flashback: Walmart and former delivery partner DroneUp announced last year they would end drone delivery hubs in Phoenix, Salt Lake City and Tampa to focus on perfecting the service in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. It also ended pilot delivery projects in Bentonville and Prairie Grove.
The bottom line: "Not only does the amount they spend triple, the number of categories and departments that they interact with increases, and their frequency of shopping with Walmart also increases," Shanahan said.
What's next: The company is still working to select specific stores in the cities, so local announcements will come in the future, a spokesperson said.