You might have wished to get your packed food, clothes or new mobile as soon as possible instead of waiting for five to 10 business days. While Amazon is making headlines for over a decade, German automobile manufacturer Mercedes-Benz has decided to go for a test of drones, which would ship items like ground coffee and cell phones within a day.
According to Bloomberg, the delivery aircraft has completed 100 drop-offs in Zurich and went through required safety checks. The company said that their delivery drones are ready to start the delivery process from next year.
To get items on the same-day by using Swiss online shopping platform Siroop, almost 50 customers have placed orders from retailer Black & Blaze Coffee Roasting Co. via selecting 'airmail deals' option.
The delivery drones had covered almost 17 km to reach four fixed locations in the city, where it landed on the roofs of strategically placed Mercedes-Benz Vito vans. Then, those parcels were carried via road to the customers.
In an interview, Corinna Elosge, the person who coordinated with Daimler AG, the parent company of logistics vans and drones project of Mercedes said, "Our expectations were all met -- our main goals were about the technical feasibility and execution. We're really, really satisfied because we had a perfect safety score."
The drones are developed with the help of US Company Matternet. The German tech giant Mercedes has conducted this test for three-weeks and the newly launched drones have delivered parcels for 11-days to concerned locations.
Last year, the Automobile company Daimler had said that they were looking for €500 million aircraft delivery project to boost the function of electronic commerce.
While the use of drones in movies like 'Eye In The Sky' is quite familiar, in December 2016, Amazon Inc. had launched their first drone to deliver chicken sandwiches and doughnuts from 7- Eleven, the American-Japanese international chain of convenience stores to their customer in Nevada.
Even Moose Cree First Nation, the Canada-based indigenous community has planned to use drones for commercial purpose.
While talking about the plans for using drones, the company CEO Tony Di Benedetto told Fortune, "Up there, there are no roads, so moving around is complicated and expensive. There are two communities separated by a river and to move between them, you can spend a lot of money on a water taxi, which is literally a raft."
