Walgreen Co. and a Google affiliate are testing drone deliveries that can put drugstore products on customers' doorsteps minutes after being ordered.
Snacks like Goldfish Crackers or gummy bears as well as aspirin for sick kids will be delivered starting next month in Christiansburg, Va., by a 10-pound drone flying as fast as 70 mph, the companies said late last week.
Customers will be able to order from a list of more than 100 items, including individual consumer goods and packages of products to help with things like coughs and colds, but not prescriptions. They will place orders through a Wing app and then get delivery in about five to 10 minutes afterward.
A drone capable of making a 12-mile round trip will fly to the delivery site, hover and use a winch system to lower the package to the ground and leave it. The drone will be run by Wing Aviation LLC, a subsidiary of Google parent Alphabet Inc.
"We're taking a 10-pound aircraft to move a 3-pound package through the sky," Wing CEO James Ryan Burgess said. "It's very light, very efficient."
Drone deliveries in the United States are still largely in early testing. Google announced in April that Wing received federal approval to make commercial drone deliveries. It marked the first time a company has acquired a federal drone delivery certification.
Online retail giant Amazon said in June that it plans to use self-piloted drones to deliver packages to shoppers' homes in the coming months.
UPS Inc. also said in July that it was setting up a subsidiary to expand its drone deliveries, which are limited to transporting medical samples at a group of hospitals in Raleigh, N.C.
Burgess told reporters that Wing and Walgreen had no time frame for how long the test would take or when consumers might expect widespread drone use.
"I think we still have a ways to go before it's the norm in our transportation network," he said.
Walgreen and Wing picked Christiansburg for their test because Wing has been working with nearby Virginia Tech on drone deliveries.
The test comes as Walgreen Boots Alliance Inc., which is based in Deerfield, Ill., and chief rival CVS Health Corp. also work to expand same-day deliveries of prescriptions and other products on the ground. Drugstores have been dealing with competition from Amazon, which offers its Prime customers same-day delivery for detergent, toothpaste and millions of other products.
CVS and Walgreen built thousands of drugstores nationwide to get closer to their customers before even more convenient online shopping exploded in popularity and started hurting their in-store business.
Information for this article was contributed by Joseph Pisani of the Associated Press.
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