Amazon Patents Shipping Label With Built-In Parachute for Drone Delivery

It's a bird, it's a plane … never mind, it's just my Amazon Fashion order. It was announced this week that Amazon.com received a patent for a shipping label with a built-in parachute to help drone and air craft deliveries make a soft landing. GeekWire reports the newly issued patent would have the shipping label look and act just as any other, but underneath is a system of cords, parachute, breakaway cover and possibly a harness to keep everything in place. Images suggest the parachute labels could be applied to every package once drone delivery becomes more common. Each label could be personalized with coupons, delivery address, QR codes and more.

Total Retail's Take: Perhaps the future of retail is a little bit closer than we thought. Amazon has been working on ways to deliver orders via the air for years, including the push for drone delivery. Talks and testing of drone delivery started back in August 2015, and the first Prime Air drone delivery was completed in December 2016. This patent pushes Amazon one step closer to making drone delivery a reality. Check out the images below for more information.