When it comes to innovation, there are very few companies which can match e-commerce giant Amazon. Its innovative streak is also one of the reasons why the company has managed to grow into one of the world’s most valuable companies in just over two decades. As everyone knows, delivery is the most important thing when it comes to e-commerce, and Amazon spends a staggering amount of money on shipping services. Hence, the company has been working on a range of solutions to the problem, and one of the things that had been tried at the Amazon headquarters was the delivery drone. Some years ago, it seemed like a pipe dream, but that is no longer the case as drone delivery has been launched in the state of California.
Amazon has announced in a press release that it’s land-based delivery drones have become making deliveries to a select group of customers located in the town of Irvine in California. The service is known as Amazon Scout. In its press release, the company stated,
We’ll start with a small number of Amazon Scout devices, delivering Monday through Friday, during daylight hours. Customers in the Irvine area will order just as they normally would, and their Amazon packages will be delivered either by one of our trusted carrier partners or by Amazon Scout.
It is a significant development for Amazon, which has been looking for ways to completely automate its delivery functions so that the cost of deliveries can be reduced dramatically in the years to come.
This is a particularly important project for Amazon since the land-based delivery drones are going to be completely automated and if it proves to be a success, then the company could expand it fairly quickly. That being said, there are plenty of challenges that will be faced by this service when it is first launched, and it remains to be seen how receptive customers are to land-based drones. Last but not least, Amazon will also place its own employees nearby to monitor the activities of the drones.