For residents near Alliance in north Fort Worth, a new way of delivery is taking off.
Walmart plans to launch drone delivery at its 8520 N. Beach St. store. The Bentonville, Arkansas-based company partnered with Wing for the new service and demonstrated it June 27.
Residents within a 6-mile radius of the Walmart will be able to place orders for small packages under 2.6 pounds. Deliveries are available only to people living in homes, not apartment complexes. You may check to see if you’re eligible for drone delivery on the Wing website.
Drone delivery is currently free, but Wing plans to add a delivery fee that will be determined by Walmart, spokesperson Jacob Demmitt said.
“As we scale, the cost of drone delivery will be one of the benefits of the service where you will be able to get your stuff not only faster but also more cheaply,” Demmitt said.
Google’s parent company, Alphabet, owns Wing. The drones use Google’s artificial intelligence model to find the best course to fly.
While some cities have concerns about drone delivery, Wing officials hope that seeing the deliveries in person helps others jump on board.
“We want as many people as possible to be able to experience the technology because really what we’ve seen is, once you see it once, it clicks,” Demmitt said. “And a lot of the questions people have and a lot of the concerns people have, once you see it in person, you start to go, ‘Oh OK, I get it.’”
The North Beach Street Walmart is Wing’s sixth location in Texas. Wing previously launched at Walmarts in Frisco, Arlington, North Richland Hills and Lewisville.
Alberto Silva Fernandez is a multimedia fellow at the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at albert.silva@fortworthreport.org. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
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