The Drone-Delivery Service Beating Amazon to Your Front Door
Soon your burrito bowl could arrive via the sky. Zipline’s drones make deliveries by lowering small coolers on 300-foot cables. A drone delivery startup Zipline is in the flying delivery race—competitors include Amazon and Google parent Alphabet—has emerged as a front-runner. For now, initial commercial testing in the U.S. is happening in Pea Ridge and Mesquite, Texas, just outside Dallas. Walmartis the only retail operation Zipline delivers for in the U.S. at present. For future partners, Zipline has designed a small pickup kiosk that can be installed just outside any building. Alphabet’s Wing drone service is already in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, delivering from 18 Walmarts to 40 nearby towns and cities within the drones’ six-mile range. Amazon is operating its drone delivery service in College Station, Texas, and an area near Phoenix, but in terms of scale, the online retail giant remains a distant third. The Drone-Delivery Service Beating Amazon to Your Front Door – WSJ