Walgreens and Wing Aviation LLC, a member of the Alphabet family of companies, are partnering to offer ‘store to door’ delivery of health and wellness, food and beverage and convenience items via state-of-the-art drone technology in minutes.
The companies will begin offering drone delivery service to eligible residents of Christiansburg, Virginia, in October and will use the pilot program to further explore the future of health and wellness product and retail delivery through the air, offering product availability and home delivery minutes after placing orders via the Wing app.
“Walgreens continues to explore partnerships to transform and modernize our customer experience and we are proud to be the first retailer in the US to offer an on-demand commercial drone delivery option with Wing,” said Vish Sankaran, chief innovation officer, Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. “With a customer-led focus, we continue to create differentiated shopping experiences that provide the products and services consumers need wherever, whenever and however they may want them. This is the kind of omnichannel partnership and offering that can redefine convenience for our customers and communities – delivering items to homes in minutes, not hours or days.”
Christiansburg was selected as the test market as Wing has been working closely with nearby Virginia Tech in Blacksburg to test drone delivery as part of the US Department of Transportation’s Integration Pilot Program since 2016.
Interested in drones? Next week’s Parcel+Post Expo boasts a dedicated Drone Demo Area – come and check it out!