Wal-Mart rolls out drone strategy in battle with Amazon.com
Wal- Mart Stores Inc. has opened a new front in its battle with Amazon.com Inc.
The world’s largest retailer has applied for a U. S. patent for a floating warehouse that could make deliveries via drones, which would bring products from the aircraft down to shoppers’ homes.
The blimp- style machine would fly at heights between 170 metres and 300 metres, contain multiple launching bays, and be operated autonomously or by a remote human pilot. Amazon was granted a patent for a similar vessel in April 2016.
The migration to the skies represents the latest volley in a clash between Wal-Mart and Amazon to grab shoppers’ attention, loyalty and dollars. The companies are increasingly treading on the other’s turf: Amazon is opening physical stores and agreed to pay US$ 13.7 billion for upscale grocer Whole Foods Market Inc. Wal-Mart, meanwhile, has beefed up its ecommerce business through acquisitions and offers like free two-day shipping.
An unmanned airborne warehouse — laden with drones — could help retailers lower the costs of fulfilling online orders, particularly the so-called “last mile” to a customer’s house, which is usually handled by a local or national logistics company. To avoid that expense, WalMart and other retailers often encourage shoppers to pick up those orders at the store, where they might grab a few additional items. Earlier this week, Target Corp. agreed to buy a software company that co-ordinates local deliveries.
“The core challenge of traffic and driving distance in any major city or in a very rural location can be helped by a floating warehouse,” said Brandon Fletcher, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein. “Movable warehouses are a really nice idea because any flexible part of a logistics system allows it to be more efficient when demand varies wildly.”
A movable warehouse could serve a wider distribution area, Fletcher said, compared with a traditional warehouse that can only fill orders within a fixed driving distance. The airship could fly to one town and release a flock of drones to deliver packages, after which the drones would return to the vessel and restock while it flew to the next town. Such a system would be more efficient than having the drones fly back to a central distribution hub, according to research firm CB Insights.
“There are numerous ways to distribute and deliver products,” according to WalMart’s patent application. “Getting the product to a delivery location, however, can cause undesirable delays, can add cost and reduce revenue.”
Wal- Mart’s application stands a good chance of getting approved as it goes into more detail about the implementation of a gas- filled aircraft than Amazon’s patent, which is a more general description of the concept of airborne- delivery systems, according to Khaled FekihRomdhane, managing partner at patent- licensing firm Longhorn IP.