Alibaba Starts Drone Delivery Test In Three-Day Program (STA BREAKING NEWS and ARCHIVES)

by Theresa , Wednesday, February 04, 2015, 08:27

Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos is not the only one with a drone-delivery dream. Chinese e-commerce group Alibaba’s billionaire founder Jack Ma is also testing drone-delivery services, as the company races to overcome logistics barriers in the country.

The initial scope of Alibaba’s experiment is small. The company’s online Taobao bazaar is inviting 450 shoppers in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou to try parcel deliveries by unmanned drones today, according to a Feb. 4 post on Taobao’s verified microblog account. The drones will only deliver ginger tea packages under the Shou Quanzhai brand during the three-day trial carried out with Shanghai-based YTO Express, the company says.

“This is a one-off campaign where ginger tea packets ordered on Taobao can be delivered to designated cities or regions within an hour,” Alibaba says in an e-mailed note. “We’re unsure about future possibilities yet, but this is our first drone delivery service campaign.”

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