To see what the future of ultra-fast delivery looks like, just open TikTok.
Videos on the app feature influencers visiting a kiosk at a park in Shenzhen, browsing a screen of beverages and food sourced from multiple restaurants in the city, and then watching their order arrive roughly 20 minutes later via drone.
In one video, the drone hovers above the kiosk before descending down inside the structure. Moments later, a door slides open, revealing a package with the two teas the influencer ordered. The packaging can then be flattened and returned through a separate slot.
It’s the sort of thing that looks downright futuristic to an American viewer but is increasingly normal in China.
The drones are operated by delivery giant Meituan — China’s answer to DoorDash — which has similar kiosks in Beijing and Shanghai. Meituan reported roughly $46 billion in revenues last year across several business divisions.
While Meituan has been running these drones for a few years, the US is still very much in the early stages of retail drone delivery.
Retail giants Amazon and Walmart are demonstrably the US frontrunners in the space, offering products from their stores to shoppers primarily in Texas and some select other markets. Some restaurant brands like Wendy’s, Chick-fil-A, and Chipotle have also tested the tech.
Unlike Meituan’s low-fee deliveries from multiple brands, Walmart’s offering is currently limited to what you can buy at Walmart and requires either a Walmart Plus membership or a $19.99 delivery fee. Amazon charges Prime members $9.99 for drone delivery and $14.99 for everyone else.
There are some key differences between the US and China that are shaping the rollout of this technology, including government regulation of airspace for autonomous drones and the population density of the markets they serve.
In particular, several of Meituan’s solutions are tailored toward getting deliveries to people in more crowded cities along consistent routes. Meituan uses lockers to fulfill ground-based orders, and its kiosks also serve as a safe landing area for drones.
Meanwhile, Amazon and Walmart’s initial approach is designed to tackle the suburban sprawl of American metro areas. Typically these drones remain airborne and lower a payload into a yard or driveway.
Even so, China’s running start with drones highlights some of the ways that retail concepts are being first tested there before the ideas are adapted to the US market.
At Walmart’s investor meeting last week, the company explained how it was using a hub-and-spoke fulfillment strategy in China to get Sam’s Club orders to shoppers within 15 minutes — a benchmark that US executives said they were looking at with interest.
In other words, if you want to experience what the future of retail could look like in the US, go visit Dallas. And if you want to experience what the future of retail could eventually look like in Dallas, go visit Shenzhen.
