Caroline O'Donovan reports at Buzzfeed that Google plans to announce a new product aimed at connecting Google search users with local home-service providers — like plumbers and electricians.
Currently, Google searches for things like plumbers and electricians return links to service providers along with associated AdWord advertisements. Sources said the new product would go beyond this presentation format to actually connect search users with service providers.
Google isn't the only tech company looking to tap into the huge and rapidly expanding home services industry. Amazon just launched its new Home Services site, which allows Amazon shoppers to search, select, and pay for things like landscapers and car mechanics without ever leaving the site.
Amazon is offering more than 700 services that include just about anything that might require a professional to come to your door. Tasks are searchable on Amazon, just like any other product, and there are no estimates — offers will be priced by the professional before the job takes place. Amazon says it vets all the professionals for the invite-only program before inclusion. "It's a pretty natural extension of our business to move into the service space," says Peter Faricy, vice president of Amazon Marketplace. "In talking to customers, they don't feel like anyone serves their needs end to end. You can pay a subscription to get reviews, but why not just do that on Amazon for free?"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by kaszz on Monday April 13 2015, @06:04PM
First it was a service, then they became the middleman^H^Hconnectengine, and then they screw you over.
It may not even be their intent to screw you. But corporations are there for profit. Not being nice. And once they get monopoly or leverage, they will abuse it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @06:17PM
> corporations are there for profit
That's why I don't buy any products or services.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @06:19PM
I sometimes wonder at what point capitalism will fuck itself in the ass, and like it.
Always.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday April 13 2015, @07:18PM
200+ years ago. Greed is very good at some things, and very very very bad at others.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Leebert on Monday April 13 2015, @07:44PM
I understand the sentiment, but I'm not sure I agree that with the implication that it has no value to the customer.
The fact is that the home services industry is *filled* with people who prey on ill-informed customers. And even informed ones. How often do you think the "bid low to remodel the bathroom, gut bathroom, be 'surprised' when you discover some mold or rotting wood behind the wall, charge captive customer usurious rates to fix" trick gets played?
Plenty of people already "overpay" a third party like Lowe's and Home Depot. You might not call "Shit-Quik Plumbing and Toilet Emporium" to remodel your bathroom directly, but you're probably fine if they show up to fulfill a Home Depot contract. You know that Shit-Quik isn't standing behind the work; Home Depot is. You know if there's a problem, you're not going to be arguing with owner-plumber Zeke in your bathroom; you're going to go to a nice, clean, comfortable store and deal with customer-service oriented people whose employer is (ostensibly) motivated to preserve trust in a valuable brand. And Zeke isn't really going to want to lose that steady work, so he's going to be motivated to fix the problem. Obviously it's not a perfect model either (Geek Squad, anyone?), but it's understandable why some people go that route.
It also is the path of least resistance. Your only bathroom out of service in a house with three teenage girls? You might not have the inclination to spend the time to research plumbers to figure out who to call. Hope on your browser, tell Amazon to send someone, and trust that Amazon does its due diligence to weed out the troublemakers so you don't have to.
Even if you ARE inclined to spend some time doing research, depending on how it's implemented, it can still help you there. I'd love to have a single interface to describe some work I want done and get back a bunch of normalized bids.
It's not for everybody, but it most definitely has its place. I certainly know *I* would consider it.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday April 13 2015, @07:55PM
Something to think about your HD example is they're very expensive. To "keep costs down" the roofing estimator uses some ridiculous linear algebra formula to figure costs (admittedly very quickly) and ended up estimating something ridiculous like $22000 to replace my roof. The other contractors all did a much more detailed plan and came in around $8K or so (some flat roof, etc).
I think the HD plan is based on the assumption all the wood is rotten or something such that they rapidly provide a worst case cost whereas the contractors spent about an hour looking in the attic and stuff to come up with a much lower estimate.
Perhaps the HD guy made a math error. Or maybe everything the middleman has the price triple.
I'm just saying why pay enough to remodel a bathroom when all you really need is the toilet unclogged, and even if they screw up or rip you off it'll still be cheaper than paying HD. Thats the traditional problem with middlemen, once you get too many layers all skimming off over 100% at each layer, skipping them starts getting cheaper.
I'm willing to bet if I needed a plumber it would be cheaper to hire two or three of them simultaneously than to have HD middleman one for me. Which is weird. In that scenario I don't really care if they screw it up or I have to hire more guys.
(Score: 2) by Leebert on Tuesday April 14 2015, @12:45AM
So is Geek Squad. But people use them, presumably because they're either uncomfortable shopping for an independent computer shop or they just don't care. You're arguing what you think people SHOULD do, not what they WILL do. Whether it makes sense or not is an individualized decision, and all I would expect Amazon to care about is if if enough people would use it that they can make money doing it.
I didn't say it's for everybody or even for most people. But there are some number of people who are willing to just throw money at a problem to make it go away reliably. Heck, I literally do my own roofing, but I would consider exploring Amazon as an option for certain services that I can't or won't do myself (e.g., electrical service entrance upgrade which, by my county code, I'm not allowed to do.)
If Amazon can achieve some combination of significant cost competitiveness over a Home Depot-type model, added convenience (such as letting me solicit a bid at 3 AM on Christmas morning), providing a similarly (relatively) hassle-free experience via an abstraction layer between the customer and the contractor, and improve over the Home Depot model by allowing you to solicit bids from multiple providers and compare the responses in a normalized fashion (i.e., apples-to-apples comparison of bids), I could see it providing a valuable service.
(Score: 2) by Leebert on Tuesday April 14 2015, @01:46AM
One other thing I forgot to address is one of scale. If you're spending upwards of $10,000 on a roof, it's a different ballgame.
Amazon, at least for the time being, seems to be sticking with common tasks: Replacing switches, moving receptacles, replacing faucets, etc. For some people, it's not worth maybe saving 50% of a $175 job to deal with the hassle of shopping. Same as why I stopped by 7-11 this morning and paid $2.00 for an orange juice: It's way overpriced percentage-wise, but in absolute terms it's worth the convenience of a quick in and out without taking so much time that I'll miss my train.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday April 13 2015, @08:28PM
The problem is that this scheme creates an elephant in the market place that will squash independent companies that perhaps does a better job. Or perhaps DARES to install smarthome equipment that isn't tied to a phone-home-marketing.
(Score: 2) by Leebert on Tuesday April 14 2015, @01:00AM
Eh, this isn't the Wal-Mart model of killing mom-and-pop stores (which is somewhat overblown to begin with), or some government-protected monopoly like Comcast/Verizon. I don't see any scenario in the forseeable future whree Amazon and Google are some existential threat to the hundreds of thousands of small business doing home services. Lots of the marketing there is inherent in day-to-day social circles (that guy at church that does HVAC, your co-worker's husband who installs window replacements...); those social circles are still going to be the go-to provider for many people. I personally see this more as a threat to folks like Home Depot and Angie's List. It's where that social network fails and people aren't comfortable or interested in doing their own direct research.
Take the article's example of landscapers. Heck, there's a whole under-the-table industry of landscaping that goes on that has neither killed the legitimate service providers nor is threatened by the legitimate service providers.
You're certainly right that, in some cases there is a risk of shenanigans like dumping lost cost installs on the market for long-term service contracts. But again, where that's a risk, it's already happening. Check out the home security alarm industry for an example...
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 14 2015, @02:43AM
"Your only bathroom out of service in a house with three teenage girls? "
Marry them off so someone else can fuck them and fuck them and fuck them.
That is what girls are for (and the old testament people knew it)
(Score: 2) by e_armadillo on Monday April 13 2015, @06:34PM
Then they could send Mario and/or Luigi!
"How are we gonna get out of here?" ... "We'll dig our way out!" ... "No, no, dig UP stupid!"
(Score: 2) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Monday April 13 2015, @07:43PM
I'm curious as to how vetting is done by two of the most notoriously cheap companies in the universe, Google and Amazon. Do they really spend money on quality control, and check people out?
The one star review for technical support is a staple on app stores. If there's a technical problem, the obvious thing to do is trash the app's review, not contact anyone, right? Will Google really give the people who advertise their services on these sites a fair review process, or will it be like Google Play where anything goes?
Not sure if this will work. Back when I had a house (I lived in the basement), my problem was you never saw the same people more than once. If you needed the same thing done in a year or two, the phone number was disconnected or the company gone. That's why I moved into a cardboard box. All I need is my straightjacket and a box of crayons.
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 1) by tftp on Monday April 13 2015, @08:22PM
I'm curious as to how vetting is done by two of the most notoriously cheap companies in the universe, Google and Amazon. Do they really spend money on quality control, and check people out?
I wouldn't expect that at all. None of their people are tradesmen. You will get a set of Web pages where they allow plumbers to register and sell their services. Then customers would be able to log in and buy those services. It's all pure software, but both sides will be paying to use it. If you don't like a plumber, all you can do is to write a bad review and to click on a button "Hate." What else would you expect from a software company?
(Score: 2) by pnkwarhall on Monday April 13 2015, @11:15PM
>>both sides will be paying to use it.
Nope--just the home service businesses. Since when has Google created consumer-side paid services?
Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
(Score: 1) by tftp on Monday April 13 2015, @11:52PM
Since when has Google created consumer-side paid services?
Every user of Google pays to Google just by existing. That gives Google ability to sell rights to advertise to that customer and to sell information about that customer. Not every payment has to be made in cash. GMail always collected its fee by looking into the content of user's email - something that nobody else dared to do.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 14 2015, @02:40AM
Instead of plumber, serial rapist arrived.
Would not order again.
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Tuesday April 14 2015, @08:12AM
Outsource it to Uber.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday April 13 2015, @07:48PM
You can see an epic strategic fail here. Everyone knows the pr0n and sex drive all high tech progress on that inter-webby thing the kids use these days.
Logically this should have been rolled out for escort services first. High margin, strong connection to internet culture, etc.
I'm not even kidding. Seriously, margins aren't high in landscaping, maybe they're hoping for lucrative corporate contracts not just homeowners?
Supposedly (not in my area) amazon already offers "person to person services" like music lessons and massage (only the construction dudes in my area). So its not like they'd have no idea how to handle this logistically. It would just be a special massage service, that's all.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday April 13 2015, @08:45PM
Offer postman service with personal letter delivery. Specify number of rings. ;-)
Nothing illegal, delivering letters is an expensive business and our delivery personal happens to have a lot of free time when the delivery is done!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @09:21PM
> "In talking to customers, they don't feel like anyone serves their needs end to end.
> You can pay a subscription to get reviews, but why not just do that on Amazon for free?"
Because Amazon reviews are known for their integrity. Can I get free house maintenance if post a review? And the more reviews I post the more free services I can get... [tristandenyer.com]
Angie's List has a problem with integrity too -- they sell placement to service providers (a poorly rated service provider can pay for placement higher up the default list of providers). But at least they don't officially let people post reviews in exchange for free services.
Also, do not want Amazon or google to know even more about my life.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @11:14PM
Exactly. I don't believe very many online reviews--unless they point out some specific feature or problem in enough detail that the author might have actually used the product or service.
When I want a plumber or electrician (roofer, heating contractor, etc), I talk to my neighbors. Their houses are similar age and construction to mine (1950s and 60s) and they know who did an honest job.
Last week one of the springs broke that balances the garage door -- our neighbor remembered the name of the local company that fixed hers five years ago and they were great. For fun, I checked in the yellow pages (telephone, imagine that) and this company had the minimum listing, no bold, no advert. The guy that came out said his father started the company and they have six vans that are always busy--a nice little business that appears to run by word of mouth and good service.
Similar stories for updating electrical service, a super neat job, at the quoted price. Also tear-off and re-shingle the roof, same good deal.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @11:33PM
I only review what I buy, and rarely post a negative review. One negative review was rejected no matter how I worded it, it finally got accepted but was so stripped of details it was no longer accurate. A few days later the review was "suppressed" by the seller complaining to amazon I presume. I can only conclude that amazons ratings system is only geared towards more sales, and not honest reviews. I chose my wording carefully, there was no foul language or accusations.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @09:30PM
No, not ensure. Insure. As in, make sure the electricians and plumbers they allow access to the service are correctly licensed and bonded? Or pay the claim when my house burns down or is flooded?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 14 2015, @02:30AM
First they only wanted to know what you searched for, so they could serve you better results next time. Then they gave you free email service, which drove other (some | many | most) businesses out. Then they read all your emails (average joe: why would anyone be interested in my "boring" emails ? Let them read all they want). Then they gave you a free OS on a phone. Then they sold you a browser-computer below cost. Now they want to get into your house. Later on all these "plumbers" will wear a camera to ensure "quality customer service".
They will provide these services free at first, which will make (some | many | most) local small businesses go away. Then they will start charging a bit later (and allow you to give them some more of your data for continued free quality service).
And when bi g brother tells them to send their "plumber" to your house, they will be happy to. And this "plumber" will then fix all your plumbings, installing a microphone and camera in all the usual places. The faucets and pipes themselves will be spying devices, which will also be able to deliver a lethal electrical charge when their masters tell them to. So they can get rid of people who have become... "inconvenient".
These "plumbers" will then start coming into your house whether you asked them to or not, because they were sent by their employer to replace a component from the last job, because the component was not good quality (or contained cancer-causing chemicals, etc). And you would be happy that they "saved" you. Then they will want keys to your house, so they can continue to provide you "quality service" while you are away.