Amazon and Walmart, which hold about 39% and 5% of U.S. retail eCommerce sales, respectively, have long been competing in the race to deliver packages as quickly as possible.
It remains to be seen whether the new Walmart+ service will give Amazon Prime a run for its money. What’s clear is that Walmart can leverage its robust network of almost 5,000 stores to distribute products extremely quickly. Meanwhile, Amazon continues to invest heavily in high-tech solutions like robots and drones.
Currently, there are about 20,000 delivery drones in the skies. That number could balloon to 1 million by 2026, according to the research firm Gartner.
But what exactly should eCommerce businesses expect drone deliveries to look like in a decade? To help answer that question, the team at Wikibuy illustrated a few best guesses at what the future of delivery might look like in 2030, based on predictions from experts at McKinsey.
Interestingly, there could be trucks with armies of drones that pull into neighborhoods and release the drones. This would be much more efficient than having a delivery driver (or even a team of delivery drivers) hand-deliver the packages. Additionally, this would save on the costs of delivery drones having to travel long distances between warehouses and homes.
Another interesting prediction is that there could be autonomous vehicles or drones with package lockers on top that move throughout neighborhoods constantly. These would function as mobile pickup and dropoff locations.
