{"id":104047,"date":"2024-09-24T13:20:33","date_gmt":"2024-09-24T17:20:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dronelife.com\/?p=104047"},"modified":"2024-09-24T13:20:33","modified_gmt":"2024-09-24T17:20:33","slug":"drone-express-wants-to-become-the-amazon-of-drone-delivery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dronelife.com\/2024\/09\/24\/drone-express-wants-to-become-the-amazon-of-drone-delivery\/","title":{"rendered":"Drone Express Wants to Become the Amazon of Drone Delivery"},"content":{"rendered":"

Drone Express Aims to Revolutionize Delivery with Marketplace Model and Rapid Service Expansion<\/h3>\n

By DRONELIFE Features Editor Jim Magill<\/strong><\/p>\n

Drone Express<\/a>, based in Dayton, Ohio, is pursuing a business model that company officials hope will someday make it the Amazon of the drone delivery industry.<\/p>\n

The company, which recently launched<\/a> delivery service operations in Winston-Salem, N.C., \u00a0plans to offer its customers the benefits of drone delivery service, while offering access to groceries and other products from multiple vendors, similar to the way that Amazon conducts its ground delivery business, CEO Beth Flippo told DroneLife.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re not selling our own products, the retailers will be placing their goods on our marketplace and people will be able to order right from there,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat’s unique about us owning the marketplace side is that we’re able to provide the same model that Amazon does.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Drone<\/p>\n

To accomplish its deliveries, Drone Express will employ company-designed hexacopters, capable of flying at 40 mph, with battery life capable of sustaining about 40 minutes of flight time. The drones, which will carry their cargo suspended from the crafts\u2019 underside, will have a carrying capacity of up to 10 pounds, although Flippo said the typical payload will likely be five pounds or less, so as to not unduly stress the aircraft, while also pursuing the Amazon delivery model.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of Amazon\u2019s deliveries are under five pounds,\u201d she said. \u201cWe’re trying to do that same thing, where it’s more frequency and smaller items.\u201d Flippo added that the company\u2019s drones can deliver 50 pounds worth of items to a home, employing 10 drone flights carrying five pounds apiece, at a lower cost than having the same items delivered by a single truck.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, we actually view our weight limit as our strength. We can break up the order and still do it more economically than having a truck drive around with it for two hours,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

While the company\u2019s goal is to offer drone deliveries within a five-mile radius of the UAV\u2019s home base, initial deliveries will be confined to customers within a two- to three-mile radius.<\/p>\n

Incorporated in 2021, Drone Express, was established as a spinoff\u00a0of Telegrid, which was started by Flippo’s parents in 1984 as a defense contractor that built radios and wireless mesh networks for the military. \u201cOne of those mesh networks was really good for unmanned aircraft. All these drone delivery companies were calling us to try to buy these radios. We said, maybe this is a commercial opportunity,\u201d Flippo said. \u201cSo, we spun off Drone Express, and built the aircraft around this mesh network.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having had the experience of dealing with the FAA through Telegrid helped give Drone Express the background it needed to pursue the agency\u2019s approval to conduct commercial beyond visual line of sight operations, she said. Drone Express was one of the first 10 companies to be accepted into the FAA\u2019s type-certification program, a critical step toward obtaining a Part 135 certificate allowing the company to conduct commercial drone delivery operations.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cIt’s the same certificate that American Airlines gets,\u201d she said.\u00a0 To date, only five other UAV delivery companies have received that certification: Amazon, Google Wing, Zipline, UPS Flight Forward and Quasi Aviation, which works in partnership with drone delivery company Flytrex.<\/p>\n

\"Drone<\/p>\n

Drone Express initially partnered with Kroger to provide deliveries of the chain\u2019s grocery products. That was followed by partnerships with Papa John’s and Wind Supply, the largest construction materials distributor in the United States. However, Flippo said that Drone Express quickly decided to evolve its strategy to move beyond partnering with just a small group of retailers.<\/p>\n

She noted that when a drone delivery partners with a retailer such as Kroger that retailer \u201cowns\u201d the customer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey own all the data that comes from those deliveries, and we were purely a logistics company,\u201d she said. \u201cWe realized that we really wanted to have that interaction with the customer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two years ago, the company started developing its own app that would help Drone Express create a new marketplace in which a customer could order virtually anything he or she wanted and have it delivered to their home in less than 15 minutes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is very similar to Instacart, so we’re not selling our own products,\u201d she said. Instead a large number of retailers would place their goods for sale on the Drone Express market and customers would be able to choose from a variety of different products. Instead of paying a delivery fee for each drone flight, customers will pay a monthly fee to Drone Express.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat’s unique about us owning the marketplace side is that we’re able to provide the same model that Amazon does,\u201d Flippo said. \u201cFor $5.99 a month, you get unlimited deliveries, no minimum order quantity, and no tipping.\u201d<\/p>\n

In choosing the Winston-Salem area as a market to test its business model, Drone Express partnered with AeroX, a public-private collaboration dedicated to creating an advanced air mobility ecosystem in North Carolina. AeroX is installing a network of ground-based radar stations capable of tracking any airborne object — including drones, manned aircraft and even birds \u2013 flying at altitudes between the surface and 400 feet.<\/p>\n

AeroX\u2019s network gives Drone Express the capability of employing a ground-based detect-and-avoid system without having to install additional equipment on its drones. \u201cThe other option is doing detect-and-avoid on board the aircraft, but the problem is drones can’t carry that much right now, so the cameras are limited in how big they can be, and by the time you identify an object, it’s right on top of you,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

In addition, Flippo said the Winston-Salem area fits in well with the company\u2019s business strategy of focusing on diverse urban areas as well as those that are characterized as \u201cfood deserts,\u201d in which people don\u2019t have ready access to grocery stores.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know how critical delivery is to the people that live within those areas who need access to pharmacy and grocery products and all these things that might not be where the people are. And they might not even be able to go drive to them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

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