Could promotional products one day be delivered by drones?

Perhaps.

It may seem like science fiction, but that’s a valid question to ask in light of recent advancements that Walmart and Amazon have made with drones.

Walmart just began making its first deliveries by drone. It’s not happening at mass scale. Rather, the deliveries are occurring as part of a pilot program the week of Sept. 6 in Fayetteville, NC. Walmart has contracted with Israeli drone startup Flytrex to have select grocery and household items delivered by automated drones.

According to press reports, the drones can reach speeds of 32 mph, travel 6.2 miles in a round trip and haul up to 6.6 pounds. Last year, Flytrex received approval from the Federal Aviation Administration to test food deliveries in North Carolina. Terms of that approval include that drones must only fly preestablished routes in daytime over unpopulated areas. Notably, the drones appear to make deliveries by lowering them from a height of 80 feet, rather than landing on a front porch or the like.

“We know that it will be some time before we see millions of packages delivered via drone,” said Walmart senior vice president Tom Ward, in a news post. “That still feels like a bit of science fiction, but we’re at a point where we’re learning more and more about the technology that is available and how we can use it to make our customers’ lives easier.”

While safety regulations and high costs have bogged down adoption of drones as delivery vehicles, Walmart appears eager not to fall behind its chief rival, Amazon, in the drone race. In August, Amazon secured approval from the FAA to operate as a drone airline in the United States. That status, bolstered by advancing tech, could open the door to Amazon incorporating larger-scale drone delivery into its operations.

The FAA said its designation allows Amazon to “safely and efficiently deliver packages to customers." The approval lets Amazon drones carry packages outside of the operator’s visual line of sight.

“This certification is an important step forward for Prime Air,” Amazon’s vice president in charge of Prime Air, David Carbon, told Bloomberg. He further stated that the certification “indicates the FAA’s confidence in Amazon’s operating and safety procedures for an autonomous drone delivery service that will one day deliver packages to our customers around the world.”