Automating Home Delivery

Automating Home Delivery

By 2028 and beyond, delivery, as we know it, will change.

Anyone who hasn’t been living under a rock recently has gotten a glimpse at a future filled with whirling drones and rumbling driverless vehicles.

Through innovative projects like Amazon’s drone initiative and self-driving Ubers, automated home delivery is quickly becoming a reality.

Driverless Trucks

In 2016, self-driving startup Otto, which was acquired by Uber, successfully traveled 120 miles to deliver 2,000 cases of beer.

This marked the first-ever commercial delivery via self-driving technology and grabbed the attention of companies worldwide with its safety, speed, and efficiency.

According to the World Economic Forum, the use of automated delivery will reduce accidents by as much as 70%, lower fuel consumption by 20%, and save up to 1.2 billion hours of transport time over the course of a decade.

Drone Delivery and Concerns

Leading the helm of last-mile solutions is drone delivery, but the tech isn’t without its issues.

Many are concerned with the complexity of door-to-door fulfillment, especially in crowded urban areas.

Others have speculated about the potential for theft, property damage, invasion of privacy via data collection, safety (think of all those weighty Amazon packages overhead), and the logistics nightmare involved with such vulnerable technology.

Alternative Delivery Options

Some alternatives that are being examined right now include underground transport tubes, autonomous air taxis, crewless cargo ships & river shuttles, and sidewalk delivery robots.

In conjunction, engineers are developing software, sensors, artificial intelligence technology, vehicle-to-vehicle communication (V2V), vehicle-to-infrastructure communication (V2I), and intelligent lockers & boxes to help guide the future of delivery.

Of course, the acceptance of autonomous tech flying overhead and self-driving robots traveling along our waterways and interstates will come down to public opinion.

Some will gleefully embrace it, while others will be less enthusiastic. In any event, what seems like science fiction now will soon become an everyday reality.

As the world moves towards more advanced and sustainable methods, packaging manufacturers and consumers will benefit from efforts that will revolutionize customer experience, manufacturing & shipping, and environmental protection.

Companies and brands that can anticipate these future trends and adapt to as well as  incorporate them into their packaging strategies will reap the benefits of being ahead of the curve.

Especially with COVID-19 still having a huge impact on companies worldwide, these future trends will highly benefit companies, especially in the e-commerce world as we are already seeing today.