AUSTRALIA (Commonwealth Union)_Coles (ASX: COL), which is figuratively unafraid to soar to new heights, is teaming up with Alphabet-owned tech company Wing to offer Australia’s first “store-to-door” drone delivery service in a few Gold Coast districts.
Customers in the Ormeau, Ormeau Hills and Yatala neighbourhoods will be among the first to test the service, which provides grocery delivery from the Coles store at Ormeau Village Shopping Centre in only a few minutes. The drone network, which is planned to transport 500 of the most popular products like bread, fresh produce, snacks and more, will progressively include nearby suburbs.
The change comes seven months after Coles successfully piloted the Wing application in Canberra, resulting in more over 5,000 deliveries.
“We are excited to include our Queensland customers to Wing’s drone delivery test programme. The service will offer a quick and easy way to deliver daily necessities to our customers’ homes,” James Geddes, head of network development and customer delivery at Coles, said.
Customers can now have their urgently needed groceries delivered by drone straight from their neighbourhood Coles Ormeau Village shop. They may now get such things delivered swiftly without having to drive to the supermarket, whether they forgot to pick up a loaf of bread or fresh milk during their weekly buy or are missing a component for dinnertime meal preparation or school lunches.
This new service “reinforces our commitment to enhancing the Coles shopping experience for our customers by delivering anytime, anywhere, anyhow shopping, while supporting our ambition to be Australia’s most sustainable supermarket by continuing to reduce the number of trucks on the road,” the company said.
Wing personnel will load the delivery drones and manage the service from a dedicated fleet that will be set up in the Coles parking lot at Ormeau Village Shopping Center. Additionally, the business intends to provide Coles delivery from the Grand Plaza’s rooftop in Logan, Queensland, where it has been doing so for a number of the on-site businesses for more than a year.
Alphabet, the parent company of Google, owns Wing, which has been investigating drone delivery since 2012. At the moment, it provides its services to companies with offices in Australia, the US and Finland.
Simon Rossi, general manager of Wing Australia, said the company is funding a number of experimental projects to support drone delivery at scale. “We’re thrilled to be partnering with Coles on this Australian first store-to-door drone delivery service, helping to increase the delivery options available to Coles’ customers by bringing economical, sustainable, and quick drone delivery to the skies of South East Queensland,” he said, adding that the company had heard from consumers in South East Queensland who are eager to see drone delivery spread to their region ever since they launched our drone delivery service in Logan a few years ago. “We’re thrilled that residents in the City of Gold Coast will finally have access to drone delivery through this trial initiative with Coles,” Rossi said.
The Ormeau Village Shopping Center will begin offering the drone delivery services on November 2.
