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Slurpees by air: 7-Eleven and Flirty make 77 deliveries by drone in Reno
Drone-delivered Slurpees are now a thing.
Convenience store giant 7-Eleven and drone delivery firm Flirtey Inc. announced Tuesday that they have made 77 deliveries via drone to customers in Reno, Nev. The two companies made their first test delivery back in July before expanding the trial in November to more customers.
Orders, which were restricted to a “dozen select customers,” were placed via a custom app that listed all items available for delivery. The app also notified customers when the delivery drone was loaded, when it departed, and when it was arriving at their doorstep.
The drones themselves have a container in which the items are placed and are flown autonomously using precision GPS to the customer’s house. Popular items delivered by drone included hot foods, cold beverages and over-the-counter medicines, with most orders getting delivered in less than 10 minutes.
“Flirtey is the world’s leader in the drone delivery industry and we have now successfully completed the first month of routine commercial drone deliveries to customer homes in partnership with 7-Eleven,” Flirtey Chief Executive Officer Matthew Sween said in a statement. “While other companies in this space are shipping jobs overseas, Flirtey’s goal is to make delivery instant.”
Customer feedback is said to be positive, with 100 percent of customers who used the drone delivery service saying that would continue to do so as operations expand.
The news that 7-Eleven has taken to the skies follows news Monday that the French post office has started making parcel deliveries via drone. The service was claimed to be the first scheduled drone delivery service in the world, whereas 7-Eleven and Flirtey’s service is claimed to be the first on-demand delivery service of its type in the United States.
E-commerce giant Amazon.com Inc. has not even come close to either 7-Eleven nor the French post office yet despite talking up drone deliveries for years now. So far, it has only managed to test a delivery drone in a single trial in the United Kingdom earlier this year.
Image courtesy of Flirty
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