Walmart

Can you legally shoot down a drone if it’s “bothering” you? For Dennis Winn, a 72-year-old Florida retiree, the answer has come with a $5,000 restitution order and criminal charges after he shot down a Walmart delivery drone hovering near his Lake County home.

Walmart is scaling back its ambitious drone delivery program by shutting down operations in Phoenix, Salt Lake City, and Tampa. The decision, driven by unsustainable costs, marks a notable retreat from the retailer’s 2022 expansion into large-scale drone delivery, which was touted as a revolutionary step for last-mile logistics in the US.

In a bizarre turn of events in Clermont, Florida, a 72-year-old man was arrested after allegedly shooting at a Walmart delivery drone. “A bullet hole was discovered in the payload the drone was carrying,” the police said.

Retail giant Walmart says it is bringing the drone delivery ordering experience directly to its shopping app later this month. Customers can order thousands of items ranging from baby wipes to birthday candles via drone delivery and receive them in 30 minutes or less. In some cases, deliveries can take place as fast as 10 minutes.

Drone services company DroneUp has announced reception of what’s currently considered the brass ring of UAV operational capabilities with a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) authorization to make beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) deliveries without the obligation of ground observers.

This week Yifei and Seth talk about drones at CES, or lack there of, and touched base on the biggest news stories of the week.

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Walmart has announced the dramatic expansion of its drone operations in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area, tapping existing UAV service partners Zipline and Wing to spread that aerial coverage to 1.8 million additional households – a likely landmark development in the scaling of aerial deliveries across the US. 

Walmart has found a new partner to expand its drone delivery services. The retail giant is teaming up with Wing – a drone delivery firm owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet – to reach an additional 60,000 homes in Texas.

Though clearly still in the early stages of their development and growth, rapidly scaling drone delivery services made the ascending activity seems invulnerable to the layoffs rocking the wider US tech sector – an assumption that Amazon, and now DroneUp are have proven incorrect.

Between the fanfare of initial announcements of intent, network planning, testing, regulatory approval, community consultation, and recurring teasers of looming launches, it can be a little difficult keeping current on the actual state of play in drone delivery activity – a haziness Walmart is now endeavoring to dissipate.

Nearly six months after they initially announced plans to launch new drone deliveries to an additional 4 million potential US households, Walmart and DroneUp this week initiated aerial services to eight cities in Texas – just in time for the run-up to Christmas.

Aerial delivery and tech solutions provider DroneUp has expanded its UAV delivery operation in Arkansas with an additional station, from which it will transport orders to Walmart clients and provide UAV services to other local businesses.

Walmart-backed drone delivery operator DroneUp is joining forces with Israel-based FlightOps to scale up its operations and fly multiple drones in shared airspace from anywhere on the globe.

Retailing giant Walmart is shifting its aerial partnership with DroneUp into higher gear with its announcement today of expanded drone delivery services to a potential of 4 million households across six US states.

This week on DroneDJ‘s weekly live show Yifei and Seth will discuss some of the top stories from the past week and some continued holiday savings on drones. Check out the top stories this week and see how to watch the live show Wednesday morning below.

Amazon may have been teasing us with promises of aerial deliveries since 2013, but it’s retail giant Walmart that’s proving that being the first to announce a program doesn’t necessarily guarantee an industry leader spot. Teaming up with Virginia-based drone startup DroneUp, Walmart has begun commercial drone delivery services in northwestern Arkansas this week.

Walmart is commercializing its delivery platform to allow small-town shops to arrange local deliveries with the retail giant. The just-announced Walmart GoLocal platform will see the retailer offer its existing network of drones, autonomous vehicles, and market fulfillment centers to businesses across the United States.

Score this as Walmart getting serious – make that really serious – about drone deliveries in its future business success. The retailing giant has just upgraded its relationship with uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) service company DroneUp from client to investor/partner.

Retail giant Kroger has announced trial grocery deliveries by drones – a move that could revolutionize the way the 138-year-old company does business.

To get people excited about Coca-Cola’s latest product, it has partnered with Walmart to deliver its latest Coca-Cola with Coffee drink by drone to select customers in Coffee County, Georgia. The move doesn’t come as a surprise as Walmart continues to embrace drone deliveries.

The city of Pea Ridge, Arkansas, has unanimously approved Walmart to begin delivery of health and wellness products using Zipline’s delivery drones. The two partnered last year but have been waiting for the go-ahead for the last few months.