Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, yesterday unraveled Amazon’s newest delivering service: Amazon Prime Air. This service will use drones, or octocopters, to deliver packages. While people are anticipating how Amazon Prime Air will improve Amazon’s delivery quality, the service actually won’t be available for another four, five years until Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approves it. Additionally, the drones can only carry lightweight packages (less than 5 pounds) within a 10-mile radius of an Amazon fulfillment centre.

 

 

Amazon isn’t the first company to use drones to deliver packages. In China, SF Express, a Shenzhen-based delivery company, started using drones to deliver shipments to remotes areas last month. This has allowed the company to reach remote locations where there are no roads as well as reduce fuel costs and man-power. In addition to SF Express, business such as Taco Bell and Zookal have also adopted this delivery format. Taco Bell is planning to deliver its Mexican food through Tacocopter while Zookal, an Australia-based textbook company, is attempting this kind of service through its own drones.

 

While this notion of using a tiny aircraft carrier to send goods to people’s doorsteps is new and unproven, it could be the future of eCommerce. As mentioned in our previous article, “Why Same-Day Delivery is the Future of Ecommerce,” the main contributor for the emergence of same-day delivery is competition. Competition shapes the dynamic of industries and the eCommerce space is no different. With the roll-out of same-day delivery from companies such as Google Shopping Express and eBay Now, other online retailers today risk losing their customers to online stores that offer speedy, convenient services if they can’t offer similar offerings. 

 

ECommerce is one of the most competitive, ever-changing industries in the world. With the emergence of international online retailers such as Amazon, eBay, and Google Shopping, online merchants must offer an array of highly-quality services in order to survive. This means that not only do they have to carry a large multitude of products, but also have delivery services that meet consumers’ demands. After all, due to our face-paced global environment, people today often face time poverty and need services that can help them eliminate wasted time. This subsequently creates a need for same-day or drone delivery and provides a profound opportunity for the development for these services.