Retail giant Walmart Stores Inc. is jumping on the drones bandwagon, with an application to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to let it begin testing drones in U.S. airspace. The end goal, according to Reuters, is to deliver its products to customers by drone just like rival retailer Amazon.com Inc. has already proposed.

At present it’s illegal for companies like Walmart to use drones for commercial purposes in the U.S., but the FAA does let certain companies do so on a case-by-case basis if they apply. The agency is in the process of finalizing regulations on commercial drone use, and is expected to introduce a definitive set of rules by this time next year, hence Walmart’s keenness to start testing now.

Reuters says Walmart has already been testing its drones indoors and now wants to expand them outdoors. It’s using flying robots built by the Chinese firm DJI, whose drones it already sells in its own retails stores. The retailer envisages a wide variety of use cases for its drones in both its stores and warehouses. For example, it believes drones could help with loading and unloading goods from delivery trucks, taking stock of merchandise as it’s unloaded from trailers. Walmart’s application to the FAA also suggests using drones to carry products from the stores to the parking lot, which we assume means customers will no longer have to lug their shopping to their cars.

“Drones have a lot of potential to further connect our vast network of stores, distribution centers, fulfillment centers and transportation fleet,” a spokesperson for Walmart told Reuters. “There is a Walmart within five miles of 70% of the U.S. population, which creates some unique and interesting possibilities for serving customers with drones.”

Walmart’s ultimate wish however, is to use drones to transport goods directly to customer’s doors. The retailer wants to expand its grocery pickup services and drones seem like a perfect way to do that because they won’t don’t have to negotiate through any traffic jams, being able to fly in a direct line from point A to B.

The concept of ‘delivery drones’ was first mooted by Amazon back in 2013, and that company was granted permission from the FAA to begin testing flights in April this year. Amazon now says it’s ready to begin drone deliveries to its U.S. Prime customers as soon as it’s legal to do so, which means Walmart is essentially playing catch up with its big retail rival.

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