History Tells Us That Aerial Drones Really Could Change The Face Of The Retail Industry

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BII

Historically, the retail business has relied on transportation innovations for major advances, as tech analyst Horace Dediu pointed out in a recent podcast.

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Railways ushered in the era of order-by-catalog shopping, the first threat to local retail. They made Sears, Roebuck & Co. a giant.

Trolleys and subways brought customers to the first urban department stores and shopping arcades.

Cars spurred the growth of strip malls and gigantic suburban shopping centers.

And e-commerce would never have been possible without modern air and ground shipping.

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Now, Amazon and its competitors understand the next big winner in retail will be the company that pioneers the next phase in the logistics race.

That's why Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced his drone delivery research program, Prime Air, on TV news program "60 Minutes" - to position his online retail empire as the leading innovator. But UPS, FedEx, Google, and others have also been developing delivery drones.

In a new in-depth report, BI Intelligence looks at the technologies, government policies, and entrepreneurial activity collectively pushing to make UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) available for retail, and business applications generally. Government regulators in Europe and the U.S. are surprisingly keen on helping usher in the commercial drone era - and in a limited fashion, commercial drones are already a reality.

In full, the report:

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Disclosure: Jeff Bezos is an investor in Business Insider through his personal investment company Bezos Expeditions.