Amazon’s $43.34 Drone

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 13, 6:23AM EST · Published Jun 25, 9:10AM EDT

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Amazon’s $43.34 Drone — © courtesy of Amazon.com Inc.

Amazon’s (NASDAQ: AMZN) plans to make home delivery via drone put it at the vanguard of retail distribution, once again. It has also become what may be the largest source of drones for consumers. Its best selling drone retails for $43.34, and is much more than a toy, which shows how far the product category has come in low priced sophistication.

In December 2013, founder Jeff Bezos said Amazon will eventually have drones which can carry as much as five pounds. They will be able to deliver items under that weight to homes in less than an hour. The plan was dubbed “Amazon Prime Air”. Practical considerations about costs, and government blocks on the use of drones have delayed implementation indefinitely.

Any consumer can come to Amazon and buy from an array of drones with prices which range from over $8,000 to less that $30. Drones have become so complex, and their costs to manufacturer so low, that Amazon’s best selling drone has a remarkably large number of features.

The SYMA X5C Explorers 2.4G 4CH 6-Axis Gyro RC Quadcopter With HD Camera has a many moving pieces and parts. It primary weakness is charge time, which is 100 minutes to make a flight of 7 minutes.

The “quadcopter” other features are advanced:

Equipped with HD camera and 2GB memory card
Perform flips at the press of a button with 360 degree eversion
Wind resistant and can be flown indoors or outdoors
6-axis Gyro stabilization system ensures maximum stability during flight

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Like many other Amazon items and services, the SYMA X5C Explorers 2.4G 4CH 6-Axis Gyro RC Quadcopter With HD Camera is a means to promote the e-commerce company’s “Prime” service. Because the drone is not priced below $49, free shipping is not available. Amazon points out that free two-day shipping is available, however:

You can get unlimited FREE Two-Day Shipping on eligible items with Amazon Prime. No minimum spend is required to qualify

Prime is priced at $10.99 a month, and includes a dizzying set of free streaming video, songs, and photo storage

So, a $43.34 drone is not just a $43.34 drone. It is also a way for Amazon to sell customers something more.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.