Airships are stately and sinister in equal measure. Moving slowly but deliberately, their great volume dominates the sky and everything below it. Aeroplanes, though so much more significant to our way of life, are either on the ground or moving rapidly out of view.
Last week, a video clip made the rounds on Twitter, provoking dismay. It showed an airship emblazoned with the Amazon logo, hovering with intent over a city. It manoeuvred into position – and then gave birth to a swarm of buzzing drones. Each of the flying robots carried a package, swooping off and down to deliver it to some address below.
The clip was soon revealed to be a digitally-conjured illusion – but I wonder if the sighs of relief were mixed with a little bit of disappointment. While some people fear the growing power of companies such as Amazon, just about all of us love the convenience of door-to-door deliveries. Fully automating the process promises a whole new level of speed and affordability (not to mention the absence of delivery vehicles choking up the street).
New delivery companies and technologies are attracting billions in investment – as one might expect of a growing market with a lot of room still to grow.
In the US, online purchases still accounts for only 5% of retail sales. In part, that’s because some things are much harder to deliver than others. As Heather Haddon explains in the Wall Street Journal, fresh food and restaurant meals are especially difficult:
“Unlike easy-to-ship household items, groceries must be packaged carefully and sent in refrigerated trucks. That makes the ‘last mile’ of the delivery process—from the warehouse to the consumer’s door—a costly, often perilous journey. The average online grocery order contains dozens of items, with different temperature and handling requirements.
“Restaurant meals must likewise be packed in special containers and delivered within a short window.”
And yet because these are frequently-made, routine purchases (certainly in the case of groceries and, increasingly, for restaurant meals too), the appetite for home delivery is especially keen:
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