Drone Delivery: How much would you pay?

I love the look of the Tesla Model S, but I’d never get one. Somehow, the opportunity to pay $100K to drive only 300 miles before spending 4 to 9 hours recharging does not appeal to me. I also love the idea of Amazon’s drone delivery initiative Prime Air.  But, like the Tesla, the opportunity to pay a lot of money for drone delivery of the latest camera just doesn’t make sense.

Amazon has successfully painted a picture of a future in which its drones push merchandise from its warehouses to nearby consumers in 30 minutes. But to qualify for Prime Air, the order must be less than five pounds, which, according to Bezos, includes 86% of the packages Amazon currently sells. The order must also be small enough to fit in the cargo box that the craft will carry, and the delivery location must be within a 10-mile radius of a participating Amazon order fulfillment center.

What is less than 5 lbs.?  Here’s some examples from some recent online shopping trends research:

  • Consumer electronics
  • Books
  • Clothing

Sure I get that instant gratification is clearly one element why people might use Prime Air and providing outstanding service is another; as is staying ahead of the curve with innovative delivery and order fulfillment. All highly significant points in their own right to meet Amazon’s goal: “to be Earth’s most customer-centric company.” But as this article says cost of transportation is another. In 2013 Amazon’s incurred overall losses of $3.5 billion related to shipping costs. How long can that go on?

The problem is that I think drone delivery is going to cost a lot – maybe not at first but eventually. If Amazon can charge $99 per year for Amazon Prime, which provides delivery within 48 hours of placing the order, how much can it (or others) charge for nearly instantaneous delivery via drone? How much would you pay?  Would $500 per year be out of line?  How about $1,000?  What about an extra $100 (30% markup) to get your new GoPro delivered before you leave for the airport in an hour?

I’m curious what you would pay. So I’m running a poll with three simple questions:

  1. What’s the maximum amount you would be willing to pay for a package delivered by drone?
  2. Which of ten items would you want delivered in 30 minutes?
  3. Under what circumstance would you need something so quickly that you’d pay top dollar for it?

To take the poll click this link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/drone-delivery

I’ll run this poll for a few weeks.  Check back here later and I’ll post the results.

As always, I’m interested in hearing from you.  If have something to say feel free to comment below or email me at colin@droneanalyst.com.

Image credit: Amazon

7 thoughts on “Drone Delivery: How much would you pay?”

    • Hi Greg. I’ll be writing something up in a week or so. If you subscribe to the blog then you’ll be notified by email. Thanks – Colin

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Colin Snow

7 thoughts on “Drone Delivery: How much would you pay?”

    • Hi Greg. I’ll be writing something up in a week or so. If you subscribe to the blog then you’ll be notified by email. Thanks – Colin

Comments are closed.