With the traditional method of delivering goods to consumers by road, companies face many problems in term of fuel costs, traffic and time consumption. In today’s age where every second is valuable as gold, a textbook rental company has implemented a way to save time, money and hassle. Zookal, a Sydney-based company owned by Ahmed Haider, has started using drones to deliver books to customers. This approach has not only cut down the delivery time from days to minutes but has reduced costs to a tenth of what they normally were.
The company owns two unmanned aerial vehicles at the moment. A demo video released shows how their prototype, Flirtey, performs the delivery service.
The drones are big enough to carry the weight of a textbook and fly to the predetermined delivery location which is outdoors and at a place accessible to the customer. The drones have no cameras, but have sensors to prevent them from colliding with birds and trees. The customer can keep track of the drone’s progress via a mobile app which allows them to trace the location and status of their delivery.
At the moment the service is available only in Sydney but Zookal plans to provide it on a nationwide scale. This would make Zookal the first company to successfully use drone technology for commercial purposes. This is not the first time Zookal has used a unique, out-of-the-box approach to solving a problem. Earlier this year the company used a question on Quora to raise a $1.2 million dollar seed fund from an US investor, meaning this company is no stranger to new approaches and techniques for solving traditional problems.
The whole project relies on Flirtey, which was developed at the University of Sydney. Zookal also formed a joined venture with Vimbra for package deliveries. The future for this small Australian, book rental company seems very prosperous thanks to its visionary leader and founder.