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Amazon Launches 'Home Services' For Repair, Installation, and Other Work
An anonymous reader writes: Amazon has quietly rolled out a new business called "Home Services," which aims to be a middleman between customers and all sorts of contracted services. It includes things like appliance repair, home cleaning, installation/assembly of products in your car or home, tutoring (academic and musical), and even performance art. Amazon makes money on this by taking a cut of the total price — between 10 and 20 percent. Since everything is geolocated, they have many more options available in big cities than in small rural communities. One of Amazon's goals is to help standardize the price for various services, so there aren't any surprises when the bill comes due.
Not sure, how this is "news for nerds", but I like it. Amazon have been quite amazin (sorry) over the years. So much so, I fear, when they stop being quite so amazing, it will take a while for decent competition to spring back up.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
i wouldn't subject my business to amazon's policies, pricing rules, commissions, or the very real possibility of having my business trashed in reviews by shady competitors.
They'll require providers to sign a non-compete preventing them from taking business from any other source...
How much for scaring a neighbor via drones? I thought they were going drone.
Table-ized A.I.
These business are local businesses which originally did not depend on Amazon. So what stops people from bypassing Amazon after locating the business?
Amazon's had a growing problem for some time with astroturfed reviews. On products it's reasonably possible to get a feel for things even through that because of the sheer numbers involved, but for contractors and labor it's going to be a critical problem.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
Yeah, my experience is that anyone remotely competent is booked forever, while those you can get are all too weighted to the blithering idiot side of the scale. It has inspired me to do my own work, in which I have learned a lot, and realized that I am also somewhat incompetent (but less so than many others, and cheaper, if also much slower).
And so it goes.
Yet another step to insert a system to mediate and "facilitate" peer-to-peer transactions. I can almost feel the middle class getting poorer as more and more middlemen scrape off their percentage.
The technology that so many people thought would set us free is being applied to bring us back 100 years when most labor was casual and few people knew if they'd have a job next year.
Car sharing, house sharing, "free" content generation, task rabbit type casual labor.... no wonder the middle class in the USA is hurting. This might be more effect than cause but we're in an undiscovered country, that's for sure.
Where else was I going to find a "Goat Grazing Service"?
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
I've had the opposite experience. I try to do a lot of jobs myself and that means that it's not generally an emergency when I call someone and I can wait for someone who is getting good reviews or a personal recommendation from a friend/neighbor, but the roto-rooter guy had a root cutting tool that I will never own and he was quick and efficient at getting my drain line unplugged, the heating guys spent days crawling around under my house, a service I was very willing to pay for having done far too much of that myself. I could never have done as good a job making the kitchen cabinets as the carpenter I employed. In general the people coming to the house have been courteous, fair and competent.
Nullius in verba
I checked a bunch of categories and all I got was "We're sorry, no pros near ZIP xxxxx".
Maybe in the future there will be somebody nearby who can work on something for me. Until then I'll just get by the way I always have. I can live without Amazon's assistance.
The concept seems good - but unless they are adding a lot of value, all they are doing is providing the same service as Yellow Pages, with the possibility of reviews. Or am I missing something? The review concept would be useful, but that's about it, surely.
I saw the demolition robot in "I Robot".
Sorry sir. Did you say Evergreen Road or Place?
Have gnu, will travel.
I think a 10-20% cut is bullshit. I'm really starting to hate Amazon almost, but not quite, as much as Apple.
At least when it's your own personal incompetency you can realize your mistakes and fix them, without additional contractor complications. You'd quickly realize "that won't work" and actually fix that issue than just "finishing quickly" or taking a crowbar / hammer to whatever and beating on it until it fits / works.
What caught my eye in the fine summary was "One of Amazon's goals is to help standardize the price for various services, so there aren't any surprises when the bill comes due." We live on a rural ferry served island. It is considered a destination for tourists and rich retires alike. The result is that the cost of living is significantly higher than on the other end of the ferry. The ferry consumes several hours for a round trip and is $40-$50 depending on the season so even if you commute from the mainland it is still quite expensive. So is Amazon going to tell a service person who registers here that they must charge the same amount as somebody on the mainland?
I can understand trying to normalized rates at a macro level like a greater metropolitan area or a large region, say "southern California", but to break it down detailed enough to take care of micro regions is going to be pretty tough, or expensive.
Yawn.
Yeah, dealing with contractors feel like getting a job. It all ends up with a personal network and connections if you want anything good.
I don't even care how much I pay, if there was any kind of correlation between price and quality of the work. But there isn't. The guy with a razor thin profit margin is often leagues better than the one who charges you twice as much for the same work. Once i find a good one, I just tip them an absurd amount to make sure they want to work for me again (especially for cheaper jobs. Professional painters are paid very little, and its not easy to get it done perfectly... A plumber can be another story, where some trivial jobs cost a fortune).
At this point I just don't bother calling someone without a strong referal. It never works out,
still bend over and let them being raped being 10 to 20% over commissions to a middle man that provides very little added value other than connect you to your customers. Why not reaching them directly? Why not launching a competing service that bills it a 5 euro fee, or that charges you 20 euros per month, period?
taskrabbit / homejoy / others are to much control over the workers for them to be 1099's.
what about parts? an job that takes much longer others of the same time? A room that size of 4 rooms so the contractor loses money on supplies costs.
What about some Islands with round trip tolls of $6
$140 for office chair assembly?
$180 for bed assembly?
$120 for treadmill?
And plenty more just as crazy
I'm pretty generous when it comes to hiring people to do things I don't want too, but who in their right mind would pay those rates? If I'm being conservative that's still like $300 an hour.
It just launched, those are the early prices without competition.
Give it a month or two, you'll see those come down.
"Finance is no longer a tool for getting money into productive businesses but instead for getting it out"...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Sadly there are no Goat Grazing service providers near me
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
As long as your work on that oven didn't require messing with the gas system without an appropriate license (from the sounds of it since you didn't mess with the gas lines though)
I sure need some 'home service' from time to time.
If Amazon can save me all that time in the adult classifieds, I'm all for it.
N/T
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Agreed.
I've been in the position during the past year where I've needed a new accountant and a lawyer for running a new business.
Know how I found them? Friends who run their own businesses.
Good ratings on Amazon are absolutely nothing compared to a single recommendation from a trustworthy friend, and I most certainly would look for contractors the exact same way.
Some people don't believe in fairies. I don't believe in The Patriarchy.
When I did a short stint at Fiverr for grins, I would occasionally get people who would try and send me links to direct me offsite so we could haggle without the limitations set by Fiverr.
I have no doubt people will be doing this on Amazon, too.
Some people don't believe in fairies. I don't believe in The Patriarchy.
The *only* folks who will go for this will be hipsters who would rather talk to an Amazon app on their iPhones than directly with a grubby blue collar contractor.
I have a neighbor who is a licensed construction foreman. When I need work done on my old house, I basically can assist with demo, site prep, and cleanup and he gives me a big break on the bill. He goes home with a case of my homebrew beer when it is all done.
That Amazon can even propose this business model really describes the sad state of affairs of the middle class, community, and humanity's ability to interact face-to-face. We need to put the fucking phones down and talk to each other.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
The article linked to as "standardize the price for various services..." mentions nothing about that at all.
If you know of grammar errors or other writing problems / errors on my page(s), I will be delighted to fix them, and also to learn how to do better. Because doing the best one can is important. Better to strive to paint like an actual painter than to be satisfied with finger-painting like an addled child. So fire away. :)
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.