{"id":6648,"date":"2023-08-21T16:17:04","date_gmt":"2023-08-21T16:17:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/?p=6648"},"modified":"2023-08-21T16:17:04","modified_gmt":"2023-08-21T16:17:04","slug":"meet-paul-and-susie-the-worlds-most-satisfied-retail-drone-customers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/meet-paul-and-susie-the-worlds-most-satisfied-retail-drone-customers\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Paul and Susie: The World&#8217;s Most Satisfied Retail Drone Customers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/1zblGTIXr9k\" width=\"740\" height=\"415\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><span style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><br \/>\nOne of the frequently heard complaints about retail drone delivery is that aggregate consumer demand for the service remains weak.\u00a0 It\u2019s true: Amazon\u2019s service, which finally got off the ground last December after years of delay, is still limping along, with at most several hundred drone deliveries to its credit.<\/p>\n<p>And Walmart, with 36 drone hubs spread out across six states, including Texas, Virginia and Arkansas, has made no more than 10,000 total deliveries to date, about one per day, a paltry number.<\/p>\n<p>But that doesn\u2019t mean drone delivery customers are dissatisfied with their current service.<\/p>\n<p>Take Paul and Susie in Christiansburg, VA.\u00a0 It\u2019s a small conservative town (pop. 21,500) where an unusually high percentage of residents are seniors, mostly retirees in their 70s and 80s.\u00a0 Many don\u2019t drive and some have trouble getting around on foot.<\/p>\n<p>Susie, who had knee surgery last year, says she can barely make the walk to her front yard to pick up a delivery from Wing, the drone company that delivers fresh food and store goods from Walgreens and several groceries and restaurants located about a mile away in the center of town.<\/p>\n<p>Susie and her husband swear by the service.\u00a0 \u201cWe love it.\u00a0 It\u2019s become a daily habit,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<p>In a recently posted YouTube video, Paul dug out a list of all the food and store items that he and Susie have ordered through Wing since the company first started its aerial delivery service in Christiansburg back in 2019.<\/p>\n<p>Topping the list?\u00a0 Over 350 meals from a local Mexican restaurant and 217 strawberry muffins from a local bakery.\u00a0 Other frequently ordered items include bottles of orange juice (117), bottles of sparkling water (82) and boxes of Girl Scout cookies (93).\u00a0 The list also includes cans of chicken soup, fruit cups and packages of tissue.<\/p>\n<p>All told, the couple has received 1,154 drone deliveries to date \u2013 the most by a single customer anywhere in the US.<\/p>\n<p>Wing\u2019s delivery system is simple \u2013 and trouble free.\u00a0 The company\u2019s drone is lightweight, just 10 lbs, and can deliver items weighing 3 lbs. or less.\u00a0 The aircraft hovers about 25-30 feet over the front yard of the couple\u2019s property and using a tether rope, it gently lowers a cardboard box containing the ordered items to the ground.\u00a0 Once the box touches down, the tether is released, and the drone flies away.<\/p>\n<p>Susie says she and her husband, due to their advancing age and reduced mobility, are moving into an assisted living facility later this year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe might have had to do it two or three years ago were it not for the delivery service.\u00a0 It\u2019s been a real lifesaver, let me tell you,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<p>And not just for Bill and Susie.\u00a0 Over the years, many of their elderly neighbors have followed their example.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s really started to catch on,\u201d Paul says.<\/p>\n<p>Wing\u2019s pioneering operation in Christiansburg was actually the first recorded drone commercial delivery service in U.S. history.\u00a0 The company has gone on to conduct tens of thousands of drone deliveries across Australia and Finland and has recently returned to the US to establish a second delivery hub in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.<\/p>\n<p>But the company hasn\u2019t forgotten about its hub in Christiansburg &#8211; far from it.\u00a0 Last June, Wing approached the local town council with a proposal to establish a public reception site \u2013 for example, a community recreation center \u2013 where residents living in areas far beyond Christiansburg could receive deliveries from Wing and its store clients on a recurring basis.<\/p>\n<p>Unlike the current on-demand system, with separate flights to individual homes,\u00a0 the company would deliver packages to the reception site for storage and eventual pick-up.\u00a0 Additional customer travel to the site would likely be required.<\/p>\n<p>The new system may not be convenient for all customers \u2013 especially those seeking hot food deliveries or other ready-to-eat items \u2013 but it would allow residents in outlying areas to shop for their groceries and store goods online and to pick them all up at a single location, saving them time and hassle.<\/p>\n<p>Wing calls its proposed system an \u201cintermediate\u201d step \u2013\u00a0 a way to expand its customer base to a wider pool of businesses and residents without having to seek additional FAA approval for long-distance flights, a cumbersome process that could take months to complete.<\/p>\n<p>Paul and Susie haven\u2019t yet heard about Wing\u2019s new plan.\u00a0 Apparently, there\u2019s no package delivery service at their future assisted living center \u2013 by drone or otherwise.\u00a0 Susie knows because she checked.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re gonna have to change that,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<p>Will Wing find a way to accommodate its most loyal customers?\u00a0 The company\u2019s current proposal before the town council doesn\u2019t call for deliveries to private residential centers, but with growing customer demand, especially among the elderly, it may be just a matter of time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\ufeff One of the frequently heard complaints about retail drone delivery is that aggregate consumer demand for the service remains weak.\u00a0 It\u2019s true: Amazon\u2019s service, which finally got off the ground last December after years of delay, is still limping along, with at most several hundred drone deliveries to its credit. And Walmart, with 36&#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/meet-paul-and-susie-the-worlds-most-satisfied-retail-drone-customers\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":6649,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,21],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6648"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6648\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}