Walmart has been the single dominant retailer in the drone delivery space, with partnerships in place with major drone delivery players like Wing and Zipline. Walmart’s drone delivery operations are undergoing a massive expansion tear in the U.S., with plans announced this year to even come to my own turf of the San Francisco Bay Area. I’ve only had one item ever delivered to me via drone that wasn’t a beta test — and it was a Walmart order (albeit in Dallas, Texas, aka the Drone Star State).
But according to real-world flight data from Manna Air Delivery, one of the key items driving true daily consumer habit of drone delivery is one that, candidly, I thought might spill or arrive too cold to enjoy. It’s fresh, hot coffee.
The company recently launched operations in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Manna CEO Bobby Healy said in an interview with The Drone Girl that local Paréa Coffee is one of its key merchants, with hot and cold coffees ranking among the company’s most popular orders.
Why coffee?
So why does a cup of coffee outperform standard retail items? Other drone delivery experts I’ve talked to have suggested that items like limes or jalapeno peppers but would fare well in drone delivery because they’re small and lightweight (easy for a drone to carry), something you might need instantly for a recipe but forget to buy otherwise, and an essential ingredient (you can’t serve margaritas at your house part without limes!).
“Coffee is the killer app for drone delivery,” Manna CEO Bobby Healy said in an interview with The Drone Girl.
Healy says it boils down to instant gratification, speed and high merchant margins. For many, coffee is a daily morning habit — and it’s one built on immediate demand. Whereas you might be fine placing a lunch order at 11 a.m. and it not arriving until noon or 1 p.m., coffee is something people want more quickly upon waking. And whereas paying delivery fees for a whole family’s dinner might not hit as hard, paying the driver tip and service fees for a single cup of coffee stings.
With a delivery drone, however, the order goes straight from the barista’s counter to a front lawn in under four minutes — arriving so fast that the coffee is still piping hot.
“Every morning, what’s the first thing everyone buys in the day?” he asked, rhetorically.
Healy pointed to a local merchant partner in Oklahoma as a prime example of how this unexpected item changes local retail dynamics:
“Parea Coffee, this small little coffee vendor that we work with in Tulsa, now can reach about 200,000 customers with a four-minute flight,” he said. “They absolutely clean up… It is a super business.”
And he said getting hooked on drone delivery via coffee will likely lead to customers getting attuned to using drone delivery more generally.
Healy practices what he preaches, too. When Manna was operating its hub in Dublin, Ireland, Healy was personally ordering drone delivery to his own house “multiple times a day” — and his number one item was always fresh coffee. He pointed to Paréa’s nitro cold brew as his personal favorite: “It is spectacularly delicious.”
Though Manna paused its European operations as Healy moved to Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, he says he won’t be without his daily aerial fix for long. Healy says he intentionally positioned one of Manna’s new Tulsa delivery bases near his house so he can get lattes flown straight to his yard, as well as off the roof of Manna’s downtown Tulsa headquarters.
And he said getting hooked on drone delivery via coffee will likely lead to customers getting attuned to using drone delivery more generally.
“It’s the gateway drug for drone delivery,” he said.
Would you order your morning latte via drone? Let me know in the comments below!
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