Walmart customers in Atlanta, Charlotte, N.C., Houston, Orlando and Tampa, Fla. will be looking to the skies rather than down the street for their deliveries as the retail giant expands drone services to these cities. The new service will launch at 100 stores in these markets, with the flights managed by Wing, a Google subsidiary; consumers can visit wing.com/walmart to be notified when drone delivery officially becomes available in their area.
Wing operates within FAA guidelines, flying drones Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) up to a six-mile aircraft range from the stores.
Walmart already has been using drones for delivery in Northwest Arkansas, near its Bentonville headquarters, and in January 2024 Walmart expanded drone deliveries to 30 municipalities in the Dallas/Ft. Worth Metroplex. Since first launching drone delivery services in 2021, Walmart has completed more than 150,000 deliveries in 30 minutes or less.
“As we look ahead, drone delivery will remain a key part of our commitment to redefining retail,” said Greg Cathey, SVP of Walmart U.S. Transformation and Innovation in a statement. “We’re pushing the boundaries of convenience to better serve our customers, making shopping faster and easier than ever before.”
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5 Years of Drone Delivery Developments
Walmart first began testing drone deliveries with a program in Fayette, N.C. in September 2020; however, development and scaling of drone deliveries has been fairly slow, even among companies with the resources of Walmart and Amazon. The latter also announced plans to expand its drone delivery operation in the U.S. and internationally in October 2023.
Customers are using drone delivery for key ingredients they may have forgotten or for urgent care items such as OTC cold/flu medicine, baby formula and COVID tests. Among the most frequently delivered items are fresh fruit, eggs, ice cream and pet food. Wing Aviation’s CFO Shannon Nash discussed drone delivery opportunities in January 2024.
