Walmart is ending DroneUp deliveries in three states

Walmart is ending drone deliveries made with partner DroneUp in Phoenix, AZ, Salt Lake City, UT, and Tampa, FL, because the services in those cities weren’t sustainable, according to Axios. This is after Walmart and DroneUp announced in 2022 that they would be bringing drone delivery to those states as part of a broader expansion.

Right now, it costs about $30 to use a drone to deliver a package, but DroneUp wants to bring the cost down so that it’s less than $7, DroneUp CEO Tom Walker told Axios.

DroneUp will be closing 18 Walmart delivery hubs in the cities, and 17 percent of DroneUp’s workforce (70 staffers) will lose their jobs, Axios reports. Following the cuts, there will only be 15 Walmart locations — “11 in Dallas, 3 near Walmart’s Bentonville, Ark., headquarters and one in Virginia Beach,” according to Axios — where you can take advantage of DroneUp’s delivery program.

Walmart and DroneUp didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.

In addition to DroneUp, Walmart partners with Alphabet’s Wing and Zipline on drone deliveries to the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area and with Flytrex on deliveries in Fayetteville, North Carolina.