KUALA LUMPUR, April 1 — An unmanned drone with a parcel was seen flying around the skies in the heart of Kuala Lumpur yesterday evening. The attached parcel seemed to have what resembled the logo of e-commerce shopping platform, Lazada.
Speculations have been made that Lazada Malaysia is currently testing out drone delivery services as the next step in pushing the company’s proposition on accessibility and convenience.
The online shopping mall, with the tagline “effortless shopping,” has made no announcements of a drone delivery service lined up in the coming future, but recently announced that the company’s 2016 key focus was to expand its delivery reach beyond metropolitan areas and roll out same-day delivery service.
Earlier this month, food ordering app Foodpanda revealed that they tested delivering food via drones in Singapore a few months ago. In the US, e-commerce giants Amazon have made it public last year that they are building up its drone delivery system Prime Air, focusing on delivering consumer products sold on their website.
In the past years, drones or quadcopters have swept the world by storm and have become a fascinating hobby to some. Despite the advanced software and cutting edge technology, Lazada and other companies will need to consider many factors such as regulatory issues and traffic control which could be an insurmountable hurdle for this kind of delivery service before rolling out drone delivery technology.
Macro-environmental factors such as the unpredictable weather in Malaysia will also have to be considered by Southeast Asia’s No 1 online shopping mall before moving forward.
