The Future Of Delivery?

Fly-By Dinner

When I was a child, the Metric system wasn't just a logical unit of measurement. It was absolutely assumed to be the way the U.S. was going to go. There were any number of classes where teachers seemed incredulous that they still had to even give short shrift to English measurements. And yet, decades later, they are still, well, everywhere. Miles, gallons, feet, yards, Fahrenheit... all still out there for you. And no one, seemingly, is ready to predict when they will go away.

Fast forward to adolescence. My first start-up looked to take advantage of a newly dominant communications medium, one that had massive installation in business locations and world-wide use. We even changed the name of the company to match this exciting tech, in the hopes that it would make us more attractive for future partners. And that's how a small group of investors lost a larger amount of money on U.S. Fax.

The point is that all tech, no matter how sexy or inevitable it might seem when it's on the rise, has a very hard threshold to break to achieve dominance and true market changes. For every social media channel that seems like an unstoppable juggernaut, many have gone by the wayside. Even if something seems logical and inevitable, if the benefits to the average user are not enough to make the bargain work, the market (or at least, in the case of the metric system in America, the U.S. market) will reject it.

Which brings me to an event that happened in a suburb of Auckland, New Zealand this last week. A pizza chain (no need to say which, honestly) completed a delivery by drone. Food was winched up and flown to the customer's house, lowered and released, with the drone then returning to port. One assumes the transaction was covered online, so there's no need for the drone to collect funds.

The advantages are obvious. Drones would use a fraction of the fuel of the technology (humans driving cars) that they would displace. Instead of propelling a ton or more of car, the drone is pushing about 50 pounds or so. The positive environmental impact is intense, not just for the gasoline, but also the wear and tear on roads, and the presumably lower fatalities, since a drone accident is much less likely to result in human injury then, well, an automobile accident. Multiply these savings enough times, independent of the costs of labor, and there's clear market movement. Given the lack of delay from traffic, deliveries may be faster, and consumers may choose to patronize this option more, since you never have to deal with a tip, or possible awkwardness with the driver.

And yet, I can also see strong reasons why drones may not succeed, outside of a niche option in isolated markets. In the footage that I saw, the food was delivered in a box, instead of the usual thermal sleeve. Even if the box doesn't take very long to get to you, there are temperature issues from being high in the air and exposed, and rain or wind could also be a major issue. Add in the difficulties involved with high density living areas, and the starting friction with having to buy a bunch of drones and figure out how to use them, and it's safe to say that delivery drivers might keep their jobs for a very long time. Maybe even to the point of automated cars, and maybe even permanently, because it's not as if you can argue with the drone if the order is wrong.

There's also this: it's easy to imagine how drone tech would be outlawed, or made so expensive as to be impossible to use. All it would take is mayhem from terrorists that use the tech, and a public reaction that more or less makes the technology publicly untenable. Or highly regulated, or with excessive insurance costs.

Hard thing, predicting the future.

Harder still, keeping people employed during it.

* * * * *

Feel free to comment, as well as like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.