“Did you pick up the dry cleaning?” may soon be a question as antiquated as “Can you look up a number in the Yellow Pages?”

A dry cleaner in Philadelphia has tried to distance himself from his competition by delivering finished clothing to customers via a remote-controlled drone.

Manayunk Cleaners proprietor Harout Vartanian says he’s just trying to keep up with the times:

I’m all about technology and I see a lot of these cleaners, it’s so old school. You come in…and you just pick it up. I needed to spice things up,”

Spice things up, indeed. Vartanian has taken a DJI Phantom quadracopter that’s intended for photography and transformed it into a robotic delivery man.

At the moment, the drone can only go carry a maximum of two pounds, but Vartanian has his eyes set on a higher-end model that can transport between 5-10 pounds.

Vartanian is currently using the drone as a gimmick to drum up business, but he firmly believes it’s an idea that will grow. He said, “It’s amazing. It’s something new, it’s definitely a step towards the future. [Customers] have never seen anything like this and hopefully they’ll get used to it because that's what we’ll plan on doing.”

Vartanian is hardly alone in using drones in the retail sector. Dominos has introduced the DomiCopter to deliver pizza, while British sushi restaurant YO! Sushi has unleashed a flying food tray that will bring orders to tables.

That's great and all, but we'd really like to see a drone that can carry us to and from the office so we can bypass all the traffic.

More From KZCD-FM