Lowe's Pilots 20-Minute Drone Delivery with Wing and DoorDash

The home improvement retailer has launched a drone delivery pilot in Charlotte, North Carolina, aiming to get select products to customers in as little as 20 minutes. The service targets both DIY enthusiasts and professional contractors who need quick access to forgotten or urgent supplies.

The initiative combines Alphabet's Wing aviation platform with DoorDash's consumer-facing ordering system. Customers place orders through the DoorDash app, and Wing's autonomous aircraft handle the final delivery leg.

The retailer has curated a specific product lineup for aerial delivery, focusing on lightweight essentials that professionals and homeowners often realise they need mid-project:

• Hand tools
• Paint supplies
• Everyday household items
• Other frequently forgotten project essentials

Wing's drones can carry approximately 2.5 pounds per flight, which limits deliveries to smaller items that fit the aircraft's payload capacity.

The retailer's Chief Information and AI Officer Seemantini Godbole described drone delivery as a solution to a common frustration: discovering you're missing a critical item while already deep into a home improvement task.

By piloting drone delivery, we're addressing a real project pain point with an innovative solution that is integrated into the retail journey, giving our hometown customers next-generation fulfillment right when they need it.

The service aims to keep projects moving without forcing customers to pause, drive to a store, and disrupt their workflow.

Wing first demonstrated drone delivery in April 2022, operating from a Walgreens parking lot in Little Elm, Texas. The Alphabet subsidiary has since expanded across multiple U.S. markets.

The Wing-DoorDash partnership began with an Australian pilot in 2022 before entering the U.S. market in March 2024 through a single Wendy's location in Christiansburg, Virginia. By April, the collaboration had spread to metro Atlanta, parts of Southwest Virginia, the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, and the Charlotte region.

Harrison Shih, head of DoorDash's drone programme, said in April that autonomous delivery is an important part of how the company makes local commerce faster, more delightful and more sustainable.

Wing announced in June that its drone delivery partnership with Walmart is expanding to seven additional major metro areas, bringing that collaboration's total reach to nearly 20 U.S. markets.

The expansion across multiple retail partners — from restaurants to pharmacies to home improvement stores — suggests drone delivery is moving from experimental phase to operational scale in select urban and suburban markets.