Hold off that idea of seeing one of those Amazon delivery drones up in the air; that’s still unlikely to happen anytime soon. Despite the delivery system being called by Bill Gates as “optimistic,” it still has not seen the light of day for wide usage. That is at least due to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (USFAA) still not giving an approval on the system. This then led to Amazon going the old school way of delivering goods to your doorstep-- by bike messenger.
Amazon now uses bicycle messengers to deliver around New York City, the service being dubbed, "Amazon Prime Now," which “mimics the immediacy of in-store shopping by bringing some merchandise to customers in Manhattan within one hour or two.” Bicycle delivery may be an old-fashioned technique for many, as we now reside in what we call the "digital age," but this makes deliveries a lot faster, which means your ordered products could arrive within an hour.
The Wall Street Journal has witnessed a couple of timed bike delivery tests in the Empire State Building area, and this is also currently used as headquarters for the bike messengers.
Amazon isn’t the only one playing the delivery game; Uber has introduced its bike delivery service back in April, aside from its car delivery system. Also, back in May, Google introduced its own on-demand shopping service, named Google Express.
This new service from Amazon will be more costly than its own same-day delivery service, with Amazon Prime members regularly paying $5.99, and $8.99 for non-members for a same day delivery.
Source: CNET, Gizmodo, China Topix
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