Walgreens’ store to door drone delivery

Walgreens Boots Alliance is officially in flight with a pilot of on-demand drone deliveries in Virginia, US.

On October 18th 2019, the drugstore started trialling a “store to door” delivery service of health and wellness, food and beverage and convenience items.

How it works

Walgreens is conducting the pilot in partnership with Wing Aviation, a subsidiary of Google parent company Alphabet. 

The location has been selected as the test market because Wing has been working with Virginia Tech in nearby Blacksburg, Va. to test drone delivery as part of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s integration pilot program since 2016.

Eligible customers in the Christiansburg area have access to more than 100 products and six pre-built “packs” of items via the Wing app. Customers can either choose the individual products they need or choose one of the pre-built packs in the following categories: allergy, baby, cough/cold, first aid, pain, and kids’ snacks.

The first drone delivery from Walgreens went to Michael and Kelly Collver, who received a cough and cold pack including Tylenol, Halls cough drops, tissues, Emergen-C and bottled water.

Wing received certification as a small airline from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in April 2019, allowing the company to charge money to perform actual drone-based deliveries to consumers.

Implications

An estimated 78% of US citizens live within five miles of a Walgreens store, meaning they are potentially in range of a Wing delivery drone should its programme be rolled out more widely.

This service expands Walgreens’ omnichannel offerings to provide customers with the products they need wherever, whenever and however they may want them.

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Image source: Walgreens