The courier and parcel industry has seen a massive boom lately. This boom is mainly because of the popularity of the ecommerce industry. Billions of people now order parcels of various types, including ready-to-eat food items, grocery, and ecommerce products online.
This huge demand has increased pressure on courier and logistics companies, as they face multiple challenges while delivering ordered products and services to consumers’ doorstep.
Consumers who order products or services online expect quick delivery. However, the retailers and affiliated logistics partners mostly face the ‘Last Mile Delivery Challenge”. As mentioned earlier, those unaware of the term should know that it refers to the difficulty faced by retailers and logistics companies while delivering packages to the specified destination because of busy roads and streets.
Cars and vans usually employed for delivery purposes often fail to ensure quick delivery as per expectations.
Considering this soaring last-mile delivery challenge, retailers and their logistics partners have started moving towards micro-mobility solutions for delivery purposes. These solutions include bicycles, e-scooters, motorbikes, and drones.
However, some challenges are faced by logistics companies, like increased cost and human resource requirements with specific micro-mobility solutions.
Hence, these companies are showing keen interest in advanced solutions like drones.
Business retailers and courier handlers must know about the delivery drones, their abilities, working, and parts to implement them as micro-mobility solutions for delivery purposes.
This article discusses the present and future of package delivery. Moreover, it also outlines the role of drones in the promising future of package delivery. Further details are given below:
Present of Parcel Delivery
As mentioned earlier, the parcel delivery industry is facing many challenges. The first challenge is to meet consumers’ expectations awaiting delivery at the quickest.
The second challenge that retailers and their logistics partners encounter is the significant amount of money that goes into dispatching various vehicles and employees to deliver ordered packages.
The third challenge is the last mile issue or crowded roads with an increased number of vehicles, making it difficult for companies to deliver packages on time.
All these issues become a huge mess for ecommerce retailers and logistics companies as they don’t get desired outcomes even after investing a huge budget to ensure a smooth package delivery process. Their inability to deliver packages on time is deemed a lack of professionalism.
The Future of Delivery
Micromobility is the only solution to deal with the challenges faced by retailers and logistics companies. However, when we talk about micromobility solutions other than drones, they also come with various issues that make their long-term usage doubtful.
For instance, bicycles and e-scooters won’t be able to deliver parcels beyond a particular distance limit.
Moreover, these micro-mobility solutions would require additional human resources to deliver parcels. Hence, it is obvious that drones will anchor the future of package delivery.
In the next sections of this article, we will try to understand what a drone is, why it is needed, and how it is made up of various parts. Keep on reading to learn more.
What is a Drone?
A drone is an aircraft that is operable without the presence of any human being on board. Drones are also called UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles), reflecting how these aircraft work.
Drones are easily operable with the help of a ground-based human controller and an effective communications system. It is worth mentioning that autonomous drones have been developed and tested to reduce reliance on human controllers.
However, humanly controlled drones are more in use these days. You may ask, what is a delivery drone? So, a drone employed to deliver parcels to their intended destinations is termed a delivery drone.
Why Are Delivery Drones Needed?
There are still some people who think that drones are not necessary and delivery of parcels is possible through conventional road vehicles.
However, it should be understood that most urban areas are highly congested, making it difficult for companies responsible for delivering parcels and packages in less time. Moreover, delivery drones offer various benefits that are listed below:
Delivery drones are ideal for food, ecommerce, healthcare, and agriculture industries.
- Excessive use of delivery drones will lead to reduced traffic on roads.
- The time needed to deliver parcels and packages will be significantly reduced.
- Transportation costs for parcel delivery will decrease.
- Pollution due to excessive delivery vehicles will be reduced.
- Lesser Human resources would be required to deal with parcel delivery operations.
Parts of a Drone
Companies interested in staying ahead of the curve and delivering packages to their consumers timely with the help of drones should be well aware of the basic parts of a drone. Knowing the various parts of a drone will help them ensure proper maintenance and operability.
So, here is a list of basic parts of a commonly used drone. Read on to learn more.
- Standard propellers make the drone fly; they create a lift for the drone to fly.
- Pusher propellers push the drone to fly; they determine the direction of the drone.
- A brushless motor regulates the movement of propellers.
- The motor mount is generally part of the basic drone frame.
- The landing gear is a structure that allows the drones to land on the ground steadily.
- Electronic speed controllers regulate speed, direction, dynamic braking, and DC-AC conversion.
- The flight controller processes all commands received from the operator.
- The antenna is responsible for communication with the operator.
- GPS module helps in locating the accurate location of the drone.
- The battery delivers power to each part of the drone.
- The battery monitor regulates the status of the power source.
- The camera takes video shorts and photographs.
- Gimbal is a pivoted support to the camera and stabilizes it during movement.
- Sensors collect data and transmit it to the operator.
In the End
The future of the packages delivery industry is orchestrated around delivery drones as they offer smart and smooth micro-mobility solutions.
Hence, logistics and courier companies should focus on employing drones to deal with various challenges. But, implementing drones is only possible when you are fully aware of their benefits, working, and parts that play key roles in their proper functionality.
We have discussed all these things in detail to help you get valuable information about the present and future of delivery services. Moreover, we have discussed necessary detail about drones in this article. Hopefully, you will find it useful.
