By Shelly Banjo, Greg Bensinger and Jack Nicas 

Amazon.com Inc. is practicing one-hour deliveries with bike messengers in New York City and pressing regulators to let it test package drop-offs with drones as the e-commerce giant tries to narrow the gap between its warehouses and its shoppers.

Amazon has been holding time trials with messengers from at least three courier services to pick the speediest and most careful for the bicycle-based service, which is being referred to as Amazon Prime Now and is operating out of the company's new Manhattan building, according to a person familiar with the test.

The trials could open a new means of cutting delivery times for a company that is already experimenting with options like using storage lockers, its own trucking network and even drones, which it recently began testing in the U.K.

Already, those ambitions are bumping up against the limits of what U.S. regulators will allow. The company wants to use drones to deliver small packages to customers in 30 minutes or less. The problem is the Federal Aviation Administration has effectively banned commercial drone use, including test flights, until it completes rules for unmanned aircraft in the next several years.

Companies can apply for exceptions to the ban, but the process has been slow. Amazon warned this week that it would move even more of its drone research abroad if it doesn't soon get permission to test-fly in the U.S., the latest sign that the burgeoning industry is shifting overseas in response to the FAA's cautious approach.

"Without the ability to test outdoors in the United States soon, we will have no choice but to divert even more of our [drone] research and development resources abroad," Paul Misener, Amazon's vice president of global public policy, said in a letter to the FAA on Sunday.

Amazon has built its reputation on the promise of greater inventory and lower prices than rivals operating brick-and-mortar stores. Its weak spot is satisfying the needs of shoppers who want something right away. Meanwhile, traditional retailers such as Macy's Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. are rolling out same-day delivery services in parts of their sprawling fleets of store.

The Seattle-based retailer is erecting more warehouses close to urban centers and is working on its ground game.

On a recent afternoon, bike messengers working for Amazon could be seen filing out of the back of a building on West 34th Street just steps from the Empire State Building, where the e-commerce giant recently signed a 17-year lease.

Messengers participating in the trials are given an address and told to bike there within the allotted time. Once they arrive, they are required to take a photograph of the building's address and return to the ground floor of the Amazon building, which is referred to by bike messengers as "the base," the person familiar with the test said.

At the base, Amazon has built a lounge replete with foosball, pool and air-hockey tables; an arcade; and other amenities for messengers hanging out between deliveries, the person said. Messengers are paid around $15 an hour and work eight-hour shifts.

Amazon has already offered a same-day service in more than a dozen American cities, where shoppers who pay $5.99 for delivery and order by noon can receive their items by 9 p.m. the same day. People who aren't Prime members pay $8.99.

The Amazon Prime Now test marks the company's first U.S. foray into superfast delivery, where it faces a bevy of challengers including eBay Inc. as well as startups like WunWun Inc., Postmates Inc. and car-for-hire firm Uber Technologies Inc., which launched its own bike-courier service in New York City called Uber Rush earlier this year. EBay has scaled back the ambition of its eBay Now service, which dispatches couriers to stores to retrieve merchandise, acknowledging the difficulties of one-hour delivery.

The air is still open territory for local delivery, though Google Inc. is testing drones as well. The FAA says it is proceeding cautiously, because the devices pose a safety risk to people in the air and on the ground.

Amazon has been test-flying indoors in the U.S. and above a private field near Cambridge, England. In July, it asked the FAA for permission to test drones in a rural area near its Seattle headquarters. The FAA responded in October, asking Amazon why it doesn't pursue a different exemption process and why its delivery drones are in the public interest.

The FAA policy has riled U.S. drone makers and entrepreneurs who say they are falling behind peers in places like Germany, France and Canada where drone rules are looser. The U.S. has fewer than 10 approved commercial-drone operators while Europe has thousands.

Still, some observers have questioned the feasibility of drone deliveries regardless of regulation. There are concerns about the drones' battery life and their performance in stormy weather.

Write to Shelly Banjo at shelly.banjo@wsj.com, Greg Bensinger at greg.bensinger@wsj.com and Jack Nicas at jack.nicas@wsj.com

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