Euro Shoppers Are Ready for Drone Delivery to Take Off

LONDON, July 26, 2018: Researchers at Worldpay are investigating the use of drone technology to help meet the demands of the booming eCommerce market, it was announced today. The payments provider has unveiled a prototype design that could help pave the way for drone delivery around the world.

Worldpay’s Drone Pay proof-of-concept uses EMV contactless* payment card technology to verify the identity of the recipient, ensuring a parcel is delivered to the correct address. This technology is embedded into a drone landing pad, which is issued to the customer in the form of a doormat. When the drone lands to drop off the package, the card details stored within the doormat are read automatically. If the information matches that of the correct recipient, the parcel is released.

Recent research conducted by Opinium for the payments company suggests that European consumers are ready for drone delivery to become a reality, as public perception towards the concept becomes increasingly positive. Spanish shoppers are ahead of the curve, with 42% of consumers ready to embrace drone delivery. Sweden and Germany are not far behind, with 38% and 37% comfortable with the technology respectively. However, Dutch consumers are lagging behind the rest of Europe, with just 32% open to the notion of delivery via drone.¹

Appetite for having a drone collect unwanted items is also growing, with 37% of shoppers across Europe willing to try the technology for returns.² This suggests that the ease and convenience that sky-bound services could offer will outweigh the concerns surrounding autonomous aerial vehicles. And with EU-wide aviation safety rules on the horizon, which will provide clear and consistent laws for the use of drones in European airspace,³ unmanned aerial deliveries are on track to becoming a reality.

Mark Fleming, General Manager for EMEA, Global Enterprise eCommerce at Worldpay said: “Our data reveals that consumers are becoming increasingly open to the notion of drone delivery, suggesting there is a huge potential market when it becomes a reality. For consumers, it could offer far greater convenience when shopping online, and for merchants the technology would help provide an excellent shopping and last-mile delivery experience to customers. Drones could also be the answer to reducing congestion and pollution, and enabling faster cross-border delivery times.

The volume of parcels in transit will only increase, as eCommerce increasingly becomes the channel of choice for European shoppers. Merchants should therefore explore new ways of innovating their supply chain capabilities, to keep pace with demand.

You can watch a demo of the proof of concept here: https://www.worldpay.com/global/blog/2018-07/drones-deliveries-and-fighting-fraud

* EMV stands for Europay, MasterCard and Visa, and is a global standard for credit and debit cards that uses computer chips to authenticate (and secure) chip-card transactions.

About the data
The research was compiled in partnership with Opinium and interviewed over 20,102 consumers about their opinion on the Internet of Things and drones. Research was conducted in 10 markets – Australia, Brazil, China, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Singapore, the UK and USA.

About Drone Pay

Drone Pay is a prototype technology developed by Worldpay’s innovation team to understand how payment technology can be used to create more secure delivery and fulfilment for online retailers, whilst also adding an additional layer of buy authentication. The proof of concept uses EMV contactless payment card technology to authenticate the identity of the recipient. The technology is drone agnostic, and simply clips onto the drone model. The original drone remains unaltered.

About Worldpay

Worldpay, Inc. (NYSE: WP; LSE: WPY) is a leading payments provider with unique capability to power global integrated omni-commerce, any payment, anywhere. With industry-leading scale and an unmatched integrated technology platform, Worldpay offers clients a comprehensive suite of products and services globally, delivered through a single provider.

Annually, Worldpay processes over 40 billion transactions through more than 300 payment types across 146 countries and 126 currencies. The company’s growth strategy includes expanding into high-growth markets, verticals and customer segments, including global eCommerce, Integrated Payments and B2B.

Worldpay, Inc. was formed in 2018 through the combination of the No. 1 merchant acquirers in the U.S. and the U.K., Vantiv, Inc. and Worldpay Group plc. Worldpay, Inc. trades on the NYSE as “WP” and the London Stock Exchange as “WPY.” Visit us at https://www.worldpay.com/global/.

For more information, please contact:
Emily Lahey : emily.lahey@worldpay.com – +44 203 664-5663
Katie McCracken : worldpayecommteam@golin.com - +44 207 067 0128

¹Research of 8,000 consumers in Germany, Netherlands, Sweden and Spain conducted by Opinium in June 2017
²Research of 8,000 consumers in Germany, Netherlands, Sweden and Spain conducted by Opinium in June 2017
³http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20180607IPR05239/eu-wide-rules-for-safety-of-drones-approved-by-european-parliament