I wonder under which "in-home" service out-call escort services will masquerade as.
It's only a question of time.
When I was at Yell I wasn't that surprised to see how frequently such services would appear on our database, initially as massage and then moving on to ever stranger personal services (with the real service buried in the description or provided by a phone call later).
I'm curious what (if any) startups will be build around this.
For example, what if there is a service that enables you to take your Amazon ratings to another platform but not have to pay the 20% cut. You can imagine the service providers would be willing to pay for the cost of verifications where their Amazon ratings is verified and transformed to platform B where it charges only 10% or 8% cut.
Other interesting angles would be around services and tools you can create to help the service providers market themselves better, engage their customers for reviews, return for repeat business, etc.
Very exciting time!
It certainly is, though with Amazon's token lack of finesse and personality. Could become something akin to Odesk for real-world services, and would likely suffer from the same maladies: low average quality, race-to-the-bottom pricing, and impersonal customer service
- For example, if you install car audio, your services would be listed alongside car audio components.
The real benefit for some, not much for others. iPad Repair can't benefit from iPad sales
- Amazon creates pre-defined scopes of work based on common customer requests which you are then able to pre-estimate and offer... Before a job begins, you can review a customer’s specific scope of work and process a change order if needed.
Isn't this too complex? Also, no mention of procedure if customer does not get satisfied by the service. But anyway, it's very interesting to see Amazon trying to standardize service business. It's too complex, I want them to show me how to do it.
iPad repair certainly can benefit from listings next to iPad sales. There's an obvious case where someone has broken their iPad, goes to look for what a new one would cost rather than sending it in to Apple, sees the cheaper repair option and purchases services.
On the second point, it looks significantly simpler, particularly from Amazon's standpoint, to start the capability only using predefined service offerings. Such commoditized services can be more easily and confidently associated with products, whereas open service offering definition would be significantly harder to support (leading to a poor user experience and adoption rate).
But Amazon's brand do benefit from this whole concept if executed well. And it's pretty hard to copy by competitors.
Also one of the big issues with buying amazon's stuff globally is the lack of warranty. Now if amazon decides that a certain product Y that is currently not bought in country X would be a good deal there, it could work with a lab to offer a repair service for it, and could guarantee promotion of said product, to make it worthwhile for the lab.
Assuming Amazon can manage this complex process well, this could become quite a big differentiation for the in many global markets.
> Also, no mention of procedure if customer does not get satisfied by the service.
Whether amazon cover the service with a guarantee or not, the killer feature will be the reviews. This could wipe out 'find a tradesman'-style web sites over night.
If you consider that the service provider pays nothing to acquire the customer and close the sale, plus Amazon brings the platform and payment processing I think it's very reasonable.
As they rightly point out in the benefits these aren't leads, they are closed sales.
I think that's a little hard to say genially. In some industries (eg mechanic) repeat business is common pretty so it's really just 20% of the first sale. Other industries tend to spend a lot on customer acquisition anyway, eg personal injury lawyer.
In some industries 20% is a money losing exercise.
It depends if they charge a premium or not ... if they charge 20% more than market rates I'd be happy with it. But yeah, that's pretty unlikely - its more likely to be a race to the bottom on prices for some services.
yes, definitely. also beyond Thumbtack, see Homejoy, Handy (both doing extremely well with lots of capital), even TaskRabbit, and a handful of other younger attempts that are late to the party. should be interesting.
This is amazing. They've created the arbitrage market with reputation management that we need -- it suddenly builds a platform for Cherry, Homejoy, Exec, etc..
I wish they introduced the ability to have structured bids / sell orders for things like food delivery, and even transportation service.
> I wish they introduced the ability to have structured bids / sell orders for things like food delivery, and even transportation service.
Yes! That would be very interesting to see. If we could, sort of, commoditize a certain service (eg. transportation), and build a bid/ask order book for it (potential customers are bidders, and transportation services provide the asks).
The problem, as I see it, is defining the base unit. In order to have a unified order book, we need a base unit for this order book. What are we selling? Is "1 mile of transportation", or is it necessary to build different order books for different locations? I suspect most transportation service have a base fee plus a $/mile rate. So now you have two variables, and the price of "1 mile of transportation" will depend on the quantity of miles, which makes it a non-commodity (1 ton of iron ore in the spot market will cost roughly the same as 100 tonnes).
Is this really something Amazon wants to do? Yes, it's the natural evolution of Bezos' ambitions, and services are really the only category Amazon hasn't quite touched. But it's a lot harder to control people than it is books. Do they want the people who have come to expect toilet paper delivered in 2 days exactly, without fail, to associated with never-on-time plumbers?
Services (unlike products) are typically constrained by the number of personnel available.
How does Amazon determine a company's availability when a customer books a job?
Most of these business I'd guess are probably in the 1-10 people range and probably not the most tech savvy. I can't imagine an adequate solution unless Amazon provides scheduling software and enforces adoption.
If you look at the list of services, it's basically a list that does not include any service that requires an appointment. My company does scheduling for small businesses and, in industries like auto, there's just a maximum number of appointments each day that we're allowed to book.
It looks like Amazon punted on the hard part by constraining the availability to only specific services.
The 20% fee seems ridiculously high.
I suppose this has to get passed on the customers, but the review system alone will probably keep people going there.
On product reviews, I know some are juiced but I still look at Amazon reviews when examining something (and try to figure out which ones appear authentic). I imagine most people take these reviews at face value and reviews are worth a lot when having a service performed. I've never been on Angie's list but it seems a bit scammy from the little exposure I have had. Amazon likely appears more trustworthy, so I grudgingly predict success for this program.
If you consider the amount of time it would take a typical contractor, say an electrician, to land a job if this comes in as more pre qualified business then the extra cost will save having to bid out and spend time on jobs that never pan out. People typically get prices from multiple sources. They don't always follow through on work that was quoted. If this type of work is "shovel ready" that's a great cost savings to the person doing the work. Not having to spend time on sales and marketing at least not as much as if they got calls from an advertisement. (Rating system means people have less doubt about using them).
For the most part, it's still pretty hard to get good reviews for service businesses. It's even hard to get prices. How much does it cost to get a car painted?
My question is why would you pay online? It might turn out that for every sale that goes through amazon 3-4 clients just use this like yelp. Read review/prices and just pay the normal way.
Enforcing quality-standards for services rendered sounds nightmarish for either the end user or for the service provider. It's going to be interesting to see how this pans out for amazon.com.
To be honest I have been wondering how long I'd have to live to see "service as a service" come around, about as much as I've wondered the same on the invention of "Awareness Awareness Month".
Seriously: Isn't this the inevitable conclusion to "x as a service"?
[+] [-] buro9|11 years ago|reply
It's only a question of time.
When I was at Yell I wasn't that surprised to see how frequently such services would appear on our database, initially as massage and then moving on to ever stranger personal services (with the real service buried in the description or provided by a phone call later).
[+] [-] njloof|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Ironchefpython|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bby|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] salimmadjd|11 years ago|reply
For example, what if there is a service that enables you to take your Amazon ratings to another platform but not have to pay the 20% cut. You can imagine the service providers would be willing to pay for the cost of verifications where their Amazon ratings is verified and transformed to platform B where it charges only 10% or 8% cut.
Other interesting angles would be around services and tools you can create to help the service providers market themselves better, engage their customers for reviews, return for repeat business, etc. Very exciting time!
[+] [-] danr4|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rattray|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mattthinks|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arikrak|11 years ago|reply
(See http://www.wordstream.com/articles/most-expensive-keywords)
[+] [-] gokhan|11 years ago|reply
- For example, if you install car audio, your services would be listed alongside car audio components.
The real benefit for some, not much for others. iPad Repair can't benefit from iPad sales
- Amazon creates pre-defined scopes of work based on common customer requests which you are then able to pre-estimate and offer... Before a job begins, you can review a customer’s specific scope of work and process a change order if needed.
Isn't this too complex? Also, no mention of procedure if customer does not get satisfied by the service. But anyway, it's very interesting to see Amazon trying to standardize service business. It's too complex, I want them to show me how to do it.
[+] [-] mattlutze|11 years ago|reply
On the second point, it looks significantly simpler, particularly from Amazon's standpoint, to start the capability only using predefined service offerings. Such commoditized services can be more easily and confidently associated with products, whereas open service offering definition would be significantly harder to support (leading to a poor user experience and adoption rate).
[+] [-] minthd|11 years ago|reply
But Amazon's brand do benefit from this whole concept if executed well. And it's pretty hard to copy by competitors.
Also one of the big issues with buying amazon's stuff globally is the lack of warranty. Now if amazon decides that a certain product Y that is currently not bought in country X would be a good deal there, it could work with a lab to offer a repair service for it, and could guarantee promotion of said product, to make it worthwhile for the lab.
Assuming Amazon can manage this complex process well, this could become quite a big differentiation for the in many global markets.
[+] [-] estefan|11 years ago|reply
Whether amazon cover the service with a guarantee or not, the killer feature will be the reviews. This could wipe out 'find a tradesman'-style web sites over night.
[+] [-] hownottowrite|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drsim|11 years ago|reply
As they rightly point out in the benefits these aren't leads, they are closed sales.
[+] [-] netcan|11 years ago|reply
In some industries 20% is a money losing exercise.
They'll probably acquire more nuance eventually.
[+] [-] lorddoig|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] damian2000|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Nagyman|11 years ago|reply
[1] http://www.thumbtack.com/
[+] [-] cmapes|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sinisterbend|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sargun|11 years ago|reply
I wish they introduced the ability to have structured bids / sell orders for things like food delivery, and even transportation service.
[+] [-] runeks|11 years ago|reply
Yes! That would be very interesting to see. If we could, sort of, commoditize a certain service (eg. transportation), and build a bid/ask order book for it (potential customers are bidders, and transportation services provide the asks).
The problem, as I see it, is defining the base unit. In order to have a unified order book, we need a base unit for this order book. What are we selling? Is "1 mile of transportation", or is it necessary to build different order books for different locations? I suspect most transportation service have a base fee plus a $/mile rate. So now you have two variables, and the price of "1 mile of transportation" will depend on the quantity of miles, which makes it a non-commodity (1 ton of iron ore in the spot market will cost roughly the same as 100 tonnes).
[+] [-] unklefolk|11 years ago|reply
Do people really need to call someone out to oil a chain?
[+] [-] tiler|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bertil|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shittyanalogy|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] prostoalex|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jensnockert|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bonif|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PhilipA|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ejz|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] OoTheNigerian|11 years ago|reply
Interesting!
[+] [-] omarshammas|11 years ago|reply
How does Amazon determine a company's availability when a customer books a job?
Most of these business I'd guess are probably in the 1-10 people range and probably not the most tech savvy. I can't imagine an adequate solution unless Amazon provides scheduling software and enforces adoption.
[+] [-] curun1r|11 years ago|reply
It looks like Amazon punted on the hard part by constraining the availability to only specific services.
[+] [-] jqm|11 years ago|reply
On product reviews, I know some are juiced but I still look at Amazon reviews when examining something (and try to figure out which ones appear authentic). I imagine most people take these reviews at face value and reviews are worth a lot when having a service performed. I've never been on Angie's list but it seems a bit scammy from the little exposure I have had. Amazon likely appears more trustworthy, so I grudgingly predict success for this program.
[+] [-] larrys|11 years ago|reply
In one sense it is high but in another it's not.
If you consider the amount of time it would take a typical contractor, say an electrician, to land a job if this comes in as more pre qualified business then the extra cost will save having to bid out and spend time on jobs that never pan out. People typically get prices from multiple sources. They don't always follow through on work that was quoted. If this type of work is "shovel ready" that's a great cost savings to the person doing the work. Not having to spend time on sales and marketing at least not as much as if they got calls from an advertisement. (Rating system means people have less doubt about using them).
[+] [-] avighnay|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] binarymax|11 years ago|reply
Software and Design is probably too broad and not concretely defined enough, for what they are targeting.
[+] [-] patrickk|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] netcan|11 years ago|reply
For the most part, it's still pretty hard to get good reviews for service businesses. It's even hard to get prices. How much does it cost to get a car painted?
My question is why would you pay online? It might turn out that for every sale that goes through amazon 3-4 clients just use this like yelp. Read review/prices and just pay the normal way.
[+] [-] akhatri_aus|11 years ago|reply
Amazon has been with this for some time. Its a bit surprising that they've not launch in entirety. (Still looks like a sign up phase)
[1] https://servicelocale.com
[+] [-] cmapes|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nosage|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drdeadringer|11 years ago|reply
Seriously: Isn't this the inevitable conclusion to "x as a service"?
[+] [-] galfarragem|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eva1984|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rikacomet|11 years ago|reply
Pretty interesting pie is being cooked up in India. I wonder if their 1.2 billion $ attempt to buyout Jabong would go through or not.