Amazon’s business model for the device is to make deliveries within 7.5 miles (12 kilometers) from a company warehouse and to reach customers within 30 minutes. It can carry packages weighing as much as five pounds. More than 80% of packages sold by the retail behemoth are within that weight limit, Kimchi said.
Via Farid Mheir
WHY IT MATTERS: the final frontier in eCommerce is delivery to the home - the "last mile". Retailers have been great at solving technical issues around selling online and fulfilling orders cost effectively in large warehouses. Delivery remains plagued with slow and costly solutions that have not much changed since the FarWest postal delivery by horse-drawn carriage (think about it). This must change and we must apply automation, robotics and other tech to improve that and make it so that any retailer can send a parcel in few hours for as little as the cost of gas/electricity to get the parcel to the customer...