At first, it seemed like Amazon Home Services, the Everything Store’s site where you can hire anyone from a car mechanic to a guitar instructor to a dog groomer, was just a money-making opportunity to connect customers and local providers. That wasn’t Amazon’s plan all along, though: now that the marketplace exists, it means customers buying large appliances or other heavy and complex items can hire someone to install or assemble it with one click.
The Home Services site is celebrating its first anniversary, and Bloomberg News is celebrating with an article about what the site’s real purpose is. While you can hire someone to do installations or repairs separately, not tied to buying a large item through Amazon, most transactions in Home Services are add-ons to a purchase.
You can, for example, hire someone to set up a large trampoline or mount a TV on your wall right along with buying the item. That provider may not necessarily be the cheapest in your area, but they do come with an Amazon stamp of approval, and adding
Eventually, as customers become more comfortable with the idea of ordering things and the people who deliver and install them directly through Amazon, maybe we’ll be comfortable with the idea of ordering our major home appliances on Amazon.
Amazon Assembly, Installation Services Bolster Big-Product Sales [Bloomberg]
by Laura Northrup via Consumerist