The service was first offered in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle, and now it is also available in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Miami, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Diego, San Jose, Calif., and Washington D.C.
Advertisement
Earlier this year, Amazon announced Amazon Home Services, which lets customers browse, buy, and schedule appointments with professional services via a marketplace of services in categories like home improvement, computer & electronics, lawn & garden, lessons, automotive, and others.
Amazon said Home Services has been received well by consumers, with an average rating of average 4.71 out of 5 stars for services bought through Amazon. Amazon says that its aim with Home Services is to make purchasing a service “as easy as buying a product”. Home Services now has more than 15 million unique service offers across 900 professional services.
“It is a very big deal for us as a company and it’s an opportunity for us to serve our customer base in a broader fashion”, Nish Lathia, general manager of Amazon Home Services, said in an interview. Gaining a foothold in services could vastly expand Amazon’s revenue and customer base. “That said, what we’ve found is that an essential number of our customers, they need services-whether it be help getting their garbage disposals installed to moving help”.
Advertisement
So far, Lathia said, Amazon has seen positive growth from the service since launch. The company is now expanding Home Services to more cities across the United States, it’s going to be available in 15 new metropolitan areas. The company charges a 10 to 20 per cent referral fee to contractors and provides customer support and refunds if there is any dissatisfaction with the service. Rather than be limited to fixed jobs, consumers are now also able to create personalized service requests and obtain free price quotes by posting text and photos of a custom task they require.
