Google starts droning on about home delivery

Another one of Google’s bright ideas is starting to bear fruit as subsidiary Wing starts testing an air delivery service in North Canberra, Australia.

Almost every company on the planet searches for the diversification holy grail, but few have the patience, investor confidence and bank accounts to see through the quest. Google is one of the rare exceptions. A company which seems to revel in investing in the preposterous, giving every idea as much capital as necessary to ensure it can be a success, should the conditions be right. Wing is another example of this.

“Today, we are excited to be launching our first air delivery service in North Canberra,” the Wing team wrote in a Medium blog. “Our service allows customers to order a range of items such as fresh food, hot coffee or over-the-counter chemist items on our mobile app and have them delivered directly to their homes by drone in minutes.”

The initial service will only be available to a limited set of eligible homes in the suburbs of Crace, Palmerston and Franklin for the moment, but the ambition is clear; drones can disrupt the logistics and delivery segments.

The first partners of the service will be Kickstart Expresso, Capital Chemist, Pure Gelato, Jasper + Myrtle, Bakers Delight, Guzman Y Gomez, and Drummond Golf, allowing customers to choose from a range of goods, though Wing has stated it is open to new ideas.

Starting in 2014, Wing has been working to realise the drone delivery dream in Australia. Live trials started 18 months ago, delivering food, small household items and over the counter chemist products to more than 3,000 times to Australian homes in Fernleigh Park, Royalla and Bonython. Progress might have been slow, but that never seems to bother the Googlers.

The pursuit of disruption is becoming somewhat of a speciality for Google, either through acquisition or nurturing ideas in the Moonshot labs. Loon is another idea few companies would have thought realistic, but in signing a partnership with Telkom Kenya, Google is proving the delivery of connectivity through balloons is a perfectly reasonable business plan.

This is not to say every Google idea turns out to be a raving success. Google Fiber started off well but soon got canned as the search giant realised fixed line connectivity was much harder than it first seemed.

This is of course not the only attempt at monetizing drone technology through home delivery. AT&T has been creeping forward with its own drone programme in the US, while Amazon has been conducting trials in the UK, and Vodafone delivered an iPhone to a customer in New Zealand. All of these trials would have been deemed successful, though you have to wonder whether they are commercially viable.

For Amazon, the idea of drone delivery makes sense. Having drones to deliver goods from fulfilment centres to remote locations answers a difficult logistics issue, while AT&T and Vodafone might be able to craft a connectivity offering, but Google has something which many of these companies do not; existing relationships with numerous businesses, irrelevant as to whether they are large or small.

Almost every business in the developed markets will have a relationship with Google, such is the power, influence and simplicity of the platform. This extends from listings in the search engine, the Maps products or through to the YouTube platform. This offers an incredible opportunity to leverage relationships and make an idea which might not be considered commercially viable profitable.

Once again this demonstrates the power of the internet and new technology. Through a simple app, customers will be able to do more without leaving the flat, while businesses will be able to expand the perimeter of their operations.

Of course, you have to consider whether local and national governments are ready to foster this kind of entrepreneurship, but that has never stopped the internet giants before. Google is showing its pedigree for innovation again, taking an idea which seems ridiculous and potentially making it work.