Amazon has reached the latest milestone in the elusive dream of last-mile logistics: ubiquitous drone delivery. After recently concluded its delivery trials in California, it’s now moving on to the next test market: Phoenix. The goal collectively is to test logistics and dynamics in a variety of conditions.
All the above happens under its Prime Air program, and its newest stage in Arizona means that Amazon shoppers in the West Valley Phoenix Metro Area are eligible for aerial deliveries. This includes a selection of products from Amazon’s catalog that have been pre-approved as drone-deliverable.
That last part basically means that items have to weigh less than five pounds, which is limiting but still ample, given the size of Amazon’s catalog across household, beauty, office, health, and tech. In total 50,000 products are available for delivery through the Phoenix skies, an option chosen during checkout.
One question that arises is why one would choose this option instead of familiar methods, especially for prime members who can often get next-day delivery for free. The answer to that question is time. Amazon says that Prime Air can get the job done in an hour – from order confirmation to delivery.
Local Karens
Of course, there are some restrictions to drone delivery. The option will only be available during daylight hours and amenable weather conditions (less of an issue in Phoenix). Amazon has also faced friction from local Karens in trial cities due to noise and nuisance… and even some people shooting them down.
There have also been regulatory hurdles. The FAA requires that drone operators maintain line-of-sight visual contact with drones at all times. This has made it difficult for Amazon to complete drone deliveries beyond a few hundred yards. So it threw lots of R&D dollars at the problem to find a workaround.
The result was Amazon’s Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) technology that gives drones AV-like abilities to detect and avoid obstacles. The FAA was sold on the solution and lifted its line-of-sight requirements for Prime Air. Alphabet’s Wing, which works with Walmart, did something similar.
But in a broader sense, the endgame here isn’t just drones but a combination of vessels in the last mile. As we’ve theorized on This Week in Local, the extent of this vision is drones that fan out from the backs of moving trucks to deliver items locally, then return for more as the trucks cruise down the freeway.
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All eCommerce is Local
Backing up, just like politics, all eCommerce is local. Though it often involves transacting with Amazon rather than local brick-and-mortar shops (albeit, some Amazon orders involve small third-party sellers), fulfillment happens at your doorstep. And fulfilling that last mile to the doormat continues to evolve.
The vision here for years has been drone deliveries. Amazon and its logistical streamlining obsessions continue to salivate over the prospect of avoiding gridlock at the last mile. So it has taken to the local skies in all the above ways – a concept that has always seemed futuristic and years from reality.
One factor that looms over all this is implications for SMBs. For one, Amazon’s continued innovations could come at the cost of SMBs, as it often goes. The more it can streamline fulfillment logistics, the more it can engage in aggressive price competition. As Jeff Bezos says, “Your margin is my opportunity.”
But a less daunting angle may be in the eventual down-market migration of this technology. Amazon is investing heavily in the technology, logistical systems, and regulatory lobbying. All of that could unlock similar capabilities for smaller players as it – like most emerging tech – trickles down to SMBs eventually.
Header Image Credit: Aaron Burden on Unsplash
