Worldpac is betting big on drones. In his opening general session address to shop owners and technicians at Worldpac STX on Thursday, August 20, 2026, CEO John Hamilton revealed that the wholesale distributor has completed more than 220 drone deliveries to date, cutting the typical order-to-delivery time to less than 20 minutes. The program, which launched roughly four months ago out of a single branch in North Texas, now serves nine customers—with three more set to come online this week.

In this exclusive Ratchet+Wrench Q&A, Hamilton discusses the strategy behind Worldpac's drone push, what it took to get buy-in, and why the distributor is also putting its own delivery drivers back on routes—an announcement that drew loud applause from attendees.

Walk us through Worldpac's decision to add drones. What problems were you trying to solve with aerial delivery?

John Hamilton: This was my idea before I even came to Worldpac. I've been with the company since right after Carlisle's acquisition (of Worldpac)—I came in with the owners, who I'd worked for before. I actually retired in 2015, but I kept paying attention to developments in the technology space—the fourth industrial revolution stuff, which included drones. So, when Carlisle asked if I'd be interested in running Worldpac, I didn't have automotive industry experience, but I did have knowledge of these emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence. I saw Worldpac as an awesome opportunity to deploy them. One of the biggest challenges in wholesale distribution is that you've got a huge number of part numbers—we have 190,000—and we have to get them to 50,000 customers a day within a couple of hours. That's a massive logistical challenge, and the tail end of it is getting the part out of the branch and into the shop. If you follow the war in Ukraine, you've seen how drones are getting faster, flying farther, and carrying heavier payloads. I saw that as an opportunity for us—and as a way to counter the big-box retailers, which have stores just four blocks from almost any shop. They're opening 100 stores a year. How do I get closer to those customers than they are? Drones are how. We're averaging 18 minutes from order to delivery, which is faster than they can manage even from four blocks away.

“This is either going to be brilliant or a face plant. I don’t know which, but we’re going to give it a ride.”

— John Hamilton, CEO, Worldpac  

How did you get buy-in? Did that go through a board?

Hamilton: I'm the CEO, so I bought in—but yes, we do have a board. I told them, “This is either going to be brilliant or a face plant. I don't know which, but we're going to give it a ride.” We put a team together, and they talked to drone partners and operators, and to drone users like Walmart, to understand their experience. We worked with a lot of potential delivery partners and landed on Zipline, which we've been working with on payloads and craft capabilities—and therefore on what our customer range looks like. Our first delivery was about four months ago, and we're still learning—what to do when the wind blows, that kind of thing. We're also working with Zipline on how to expand. Right now, we're operating out of one branch near Dallas, and we're adding customers and expanding from there.

What has the feedback been like on the receiving end?

Hamilton: Everybody loves 18 minutes—that's no surprise, because they knew fast would be good. But it's also added a certain aura to their shops. Some owners will bring customers out to watch. The drone drops from quite a distance on a tether—it's a big craft, and you don't want that buzzing sound right on top of you—and it sends a text saying it's on its way, then that it's arrived, so shop owners know when to head to the drop zone. It's quite a splash, and they like it.

The vast majority of our orders meet the distance and payload capacity, though not all of them—we have some heavy stuff that won't go yet. Now we're working with shops on the other end of the equation: You get delivery fast, but how do you order fast? I don't want someone spending 15 minutes on speedDIAL or an e-commerce platform to place an order that then takes 15 minutes to deliver. I want three minutes to order and then a fast delivery, so we're working with shops to help change their process flow, too.

Let's talk about capacity. How much can a drone carry, and how far?

Hamilton: A lot depends on local regulations, so I'll give you the ballpark since I don't have the exact figures in front of me—it's around five pounds and about five miles right now.

And you're planning to scale up to larger drones for bigger payloads?

Hamilton: That's right, although we're not designing the drones ourselves—our partners are. They each have their own development path for the size of their craft, and there's a lot of regulation around what can be in the air and where. I have no doubt payloads will get heavier, and ranges will get longer in no time. Honestly, I'm not sure I need farther—I see drones as best suited to meeting near-end customer needs. My regular delivery routes are already very competitive if a shop is, say, 10 miles away. The real problem I'm solving is that a shop can do a will-call at AutoZone in 15 minutes but has to wait an hour for our next cutoff. Drones close that gap. We're still working through the commercialization of it—it's such a radical new technology that you don't want to just bolt it onto your normal delivery scheme. It's an opportunity to rethink the whole final mile, and we're still in the process of doing that. But for now, I see it serving the near-end customer who doesn't want to wait an hour for the next cutoff.

You're currently in Texas. Where do you see the program expanding next, and how far do you see it going overall?

Hamilton: Everywhere, eventually—starting where there aren't snowstorms. The current expansion plan is done in partnership with Zipline, and our ideas for where to expand line up well with theirs. But it'll mostly be warm-weather markets to start.

Are the delivery destinations programmed in, or is someone flying the drone remotely?

Hamilton: They're programmed in, though it is monitored—there's a regulatory ratio of operators to drones, something like one operator per five drones. But no one's flying it like a video game.

Something that drew a lot of applause was Worldpac's move back to using its own drivers instead of contractors. Why were shop owners so excited about that?

Hamilton: We're not an e-commerce company, but we operate a bit like one—you place your order on speedDIAL, and the person who actually shows up at your shop is what you really know about us. Contract drivers aren't Worldpac employees, so their daily point of contact isn't really us. We want them to be Worldpac, and we hold high expectations for the professionalism of our drivers—that's something you can train and reinforce much more effectively when they're your own employees. Contract drivers are like gig workers: an Uber driver can turn down a ride. We can't have our drivers deciding they'd rather take the rest of the day off.

We have great relationships with our contract carriers, and I don't mean to suggest they're not professional—they have their own management working toward the same goals.

Is this also an opportunity for Worldpac to re-engage with customers directly?

Hamilton: Yes. It won't happen overnight, since we have thousands of these drivers, so it'll be a migration.

How many drivers are you planning to hire?

Hamilton: It'll be in the thousands. We don't currently have the HR capacity to hire that many at once, or the vehicles to put them in, so it'll happen gradually.

You also mentioned a new speedDIAL feature launching in January that lets shop owners track their parts in real time. That seemed to excite shop owners, too.

Hamilton: It did. Shop owners will be able to check it on a mobile app, including with voice commands—so a tech under a car doesn't have to walk into the office and tap through several screens. They'll just be able to ask where their part is.

So, that's a move toward precise, real-time location instead of an approximation?

Hamilton: Exactly. One of the issues we've had is driver discipline around following the prescribed stop sequence—though frankly, a driver who knows the local area often shouldn't follow it exactly. With this new tracking, the system will log each stop as it happens, so when a customer calls and asks where their part is, our support team can see exactly where the driver is, rather than relying on where they're supposed to be in the sequence. And because we're optimizing routes with this data, there will be even less reason for drivers to deviate from the ideal sequence.