Lowe’s started delivering home improvement supplies by drone on Thursday, September 24, from its store in Matthews, North Carolina, a Charlotte suburb in the Mooresville-based chain’s home market. Customers within roughly 5 miles (8 km) of the store order through a “Lowe’s by Drone” storefront in the DoorDash app, and Wing, Alphabet’s drone delivery company, flies the order to their yard in as little as 20 minutes.
The pilot covers more than 100 items: screwdrivers, caulk, painter’s tape, paint supplies, batteries, soap and all-purpose cleaner. Every order has to fit under Wing’s limit of about 2.5 pounds (1.1 kg) per flight. The lumber still goes home in a pickup.
Lowe’s calls itself the first home improvement retailer to offer drone delivery. Six years ago, a hardware store in Logan, Australia, was already one of Wing’s first delivery partners.
Lowe’s Is the First Chain to Fly Orders, Not the First Hardware Store
Lowe’s “first” holds for a national home improvement chain. It does not hold for hardware by drone. Wing’s Logan service drew requests from tradesmen who wanted screws and nails flown to job sites, and Browns Plains Hardware signed on as one of its earliest partners by 2020.
DroneXL covered that in November 2020, in Wing drones to deliver hardware supplies to tradesmen. The store’s Paul Charlton described the problem then: run out of the right screws on a job, and the round trip to the hardware store costs at least half an hour. Wing could do it in seven minutes, he said.
That is the same pitch Lowe’s makes today, down to the forgotten roll of tape stalling a paint job. Lowe’s announcement quotes chief information and AI officer Seemantini Godbole promising “next-generation fulfillment right when they need it.” What is new is the size of the network behind the pitch. Lowe’s runs more than 1,750 stores, and Rajiv Raghunathan, its vice president of technology for stores, told Supply Chain Dive the program could expand to more of them.
Lowe’s Plugged Into a Wing and DoorDash Network Running Since 2025
Lowe’s joined a drone operation rather than building one: DoorDash and Wing launched drone delivery in Charlotte in May 2025 from The Arboretum Shopping Center, starting with Panera Bread and local restaurants. Lowe’s says its Matthews pilot builds on those existing Charlotte operations.
DroneXL reported that launch in DoorDash and Wing Launch Drone Delivery in Charlotte, when the service reached customers within 4 miles of the hub. The Lowe’s radius is 5 miles around the Matthews store, according to CNBC, which reported the launch as an exclusive.
DoorDash now has its own aircraft too. It earned FAA Part 135 air carrier certification and launched DoorDash Air on July 29, as DroneXL covered in DoorDash Just Became An Airline, while saying its Wing partnership continues. Lowe’s orders fly on Wing. DoorDash is selling Wing’s flights while building aircraft that could replace them.
Wing Has Answered None of DroneXL’s 30 Safety Questions
Wing, the company flying Lowe’s orders over Matthews, has not answered any of the 30 written safety questions DroneXL sent it on September 8, as of Thursday night. They were due September 15. Zipline answered in part the next day. Amazon Prime Air has left 25 questions unanswered.
The questions cover what anyone under the flight path would want to know: weight and payload, recovery systems, single points of failure, drop-zone checks, incident records, sound, cameras, liability and weather limits. DroneXL sent the same generic set to all three operators when it launched the Drone Delivery Tracker, and published where each one stood in Zipline Answers Safety Questions on the Record. Amazon and Wing Don’t.
DroneXL’s Take
I’m for drone delivery when the cargo justifies the flight: a defibrillator to a cardiac arrest, a prescription to an island, blood to a trauma bay. Painter’s tape is a convenience run. A contractor who saves half an hour mid-job gets real value, so I won’t call it frivolous, but convenience runs are exactly the flights that have to be done right, because they will be the most common ones over people’s houses. Lowe’s just put its brand on a service whose operator has not answered DroneXL’s safety questions. I’d want those answers before putting my name on the box. If you live within 5 miles of the Matthews store, you now know the drone carries 2.5 pounds, and Wing hasn’t told DroneXL what it does when something fails.
Sources: Lowe’s via PR Newswire, CNBC, Supply Chain Dive
DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.
