Alibaba to deliver ginger tea in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou using drones

#alibaba #drones #gingertea #jackma Alibaba, the biggest internet retailer of China wants to replace delivery boys with quadcopter drones and has started testing drone-based deliveries to hundreds of customers in the cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou as reported in bbc.com dated 4 February 2015.
The trial will continue for three days and would be restricted to locations that fall within a one-hour flight of its distribution centers. Alibaba would confine its trials to using drones to deliver orders for a specific type of ginger tea, the maximum weight of the packages would be to 340g (12oz).
The experiment was being undertaken by Alibaba's Taobao division which is an eBay-like marketplace that connects third-party sellers and buyers – the exercise would involve 450 shoppers.
Obviously, Alibaba is following in the footsteps of Amazon, Google and parcel service UPS which have begun to conduct trials of such aircraft.
Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba has ambitions of global expansion and wants to reach out to two billion customers worldwide by 2025.
Of course, using drones instead of delivery boys does have its drawbacks – one factor is that drones can successfully fly above the tree line but, nearer ground level, it would have to encounter moving obstacles like children, vehicles and pets when they come to land below the roof of your house. That would need more study and expertise.