Amazon Home Services has been in beta since November and has now formally launched. The service will take on Angie’s List, Home Advisor and a slew of new players in the increasingly crowded home services space (i.e. Pro,com, Serviz, Home Depot’s Red Beacon, Thumbtack and apparently, Google.)

VP Pete Faricy told The New York Times that it now covers more than 700 types of services and has already entertained 2.4 million “serve offers.” A look at Amazon’s map identifies four highly developed core markets (Seattle, San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles) and 36 moderately developed markets (and many more lightly-developed markets.)

All of Amazon’s “hand picked” pros that hope to work with Amazon must undergo background checks, which will cost $50 (plus $40 per employee); have appropriate licenses, and carry insurance. All listings will also feature Yelp reviews as well. Pros will pay Amazon 20 percent for services that cost $1,000 or less, and 15 percent above that amount, as well as monthly subscription fees — although those fees are waived through June 2015. The 20 percent fees are comprised of 15 percent service platform fees, and 5 percent transaction fees. The fees and requirements are fairly standard in the industry.

What Amazon brings to the table is its brand and especially, a high volume of consumers. It is currently targeting its customers with an offer of a $20 gift card for first time users. It also has millions of merchant and consumer credit cards in its profiles, which can be a major advantage. Longer term, it has the potential to leverage its Local Offers business, which has been including service offers for some time. Amazon doesn’t, however, have an instant collection of merchants that are pre-inclined to work with it for marketing purposes.

It also doesn’t have the behavioral intelligence that informs its retail services,or its own reviews — although Yelp’s reviews will help it out here. There are always thoughts that Amazon would want to try to buy a service such as Angie’s List or Home Advisor to complement its efforts in these areas.

On the surface, it seems like a stretch for Amazon to enter home services. It could, of course, be an initial failure, like Amazon’s Fire Phone. (or a long term success, like Kindle and Amazon Web Services). But if you are thinking big… services are a key part of the local economy that Amazon is tackling for sales, leads, payments, hosting and other areas.

We note that many of the competitors in the space leverage the new models of Uber-like, Local On Demand Economy that BIA/Kelsey is focusing on at our June 12 NOW event. There is certainly plenty of potential. As Home Depot Silicon Valley head Anthony Roddio noted at our ILM 2014 event in December, “The market is ripe but no one is there yet.” Some estimates have penetration in this segment at under 10 percent.

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Amazon Home Services has been in beta since November and has now formally launched. The service will take on Angie’s List, Home Advisor and a slew of new players in the increasingly crowded home services space (i.e. Pro,com, Serviz, Home Depot’s Red Beacon, Thumbtack and apparently, Google.)

VP Pete Faricy told The New York Times that it now covers more than 700 types of services and has already entertained 2.4 million “serve offers.” A look at Amazon’s map identifies four highly developed core markets (Seattle, San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles) and 36 moderately developed markets (and many more lightly-developed markets.)

All of Amazon’s “hand picked” pros that hope to work with Amazon must undergo background checks, which will cost $50 (plus $40 per employee); have appropriate licenses, and carry insurance. All listings will also feature Yelp reviews as well. Pros will pay Amazon 20 percent for services that cost $1,000 or less, and 15 percent above that amount, as well as monthly subscription fees — although those fees are waived through June 2015. The 20 percent fees are comprised of 15 percent service platform fees, and 5 percent transaction fees. The fees and requirements are fairly standard in the industry.

What Amazon brings to the table is its brand and especially, a high volume of consumers. It is currently targeting its customers with an offer of a $20 gift card for first time users. It also has millions of merchant and consumer credit cards in its profiles, which can be a major advantage. Longer term, it has the potential to leverage its Local Offers business, which has been including service offers for some time. Amazon doesn’t, however, have an instant collection of merchants that are pre-inclined to work with it for marketing purposes.

It also doesn’t have the behavioral intelligence that informs its retail services,or its own reviews — although Yelp’s reviews will help it out here. There are always thoughts that Amazon would want to try to buy a service such as Angie’s List or Home Advisor to complement its efforts in these areas.

On the surface, it seems like a stretch for Amazon to enter home services. It could, of course, be an initial failure, like Amazon’s Fire Phone. (or a long term success, like Kindle and Amazon Web Services). But if you are thinking big… services are a key part of the local economy that Amazon is tackling for sales, leads, payments, hosting and other areas.

We note that many of the competitors in the space leverage the new models of Uber-like, Local On Demand Economy that BIA/Kelsey is focusing on at our June 12 NOW event. There is certainly plenty of potential. As Home Depot Silicon Valley head Anthony Roddio noted at our ILM 2014 event in December, “The market is ripe but no one is there yet.” Some estimates have penetration in this segment at under 10 percent.

The post A Look at Amazon's Entry into Home Services appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Home and Trade Services SMBs report their most popular channels to use are from traditional media: newspapers, print yellow pages and direct mail. Digital is also part of the Top 5 most used with Facebook pages and a website rounding it out. Given the vertical’s heavy reliance on traditional media, there’s an opportunity for traditional media players to bundle digital media to their offerings.

Home and Trade Services is the only vertical industry in our study with print yellow pages among the Top 5 media used for advertising and promotion, and was only in the Top 10 of one other vertical — Professional Services. Print yellow pages also had the highest return on investment (ROI) of the top three traditional media — with nearly 28% saying that their ROI on print yellow pages was either excellent (10-19x) or extraordinary (over 20x) spend.

SMBs in the Home and Trade Vertical had an average annual advertising spend of $12,573 in Wave 18 (Q3/2014), down from $19,238 in the previous wave (Q3/2013). Home and Trade Service SMBs overall will not increase their ad budget in 2015. Nearly 61% of the SMBs in the Home and Trade Services vertical reported that they would maintain their ad spend over the next 12 months and 20.8% say they will increase. While SMBs in the Home and Trade Services utilize traditional media, their budget allocation for digital is increasing. On average, SMBs in the Home and Trade Services vertical allocated 24.7% of their advertising budget to digital in the last 12 months. Over the next 12 months, they report plans to increase it to 27.7%.

Local media players, especially in the traditional channels, have an opportunity to continue to serve their Home and Trade Services SMBs through traditional channels as well as grabbing more of their ad dollars by offering digital products.

Clients of the BIA/Kelsey Advisory Services can find the full Home and Trade Services vertical report here. Interested in finding out more about our LCM survey? Click here.

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Home improvement services is a wild new frontier that has just scratched the tip of its potential, according to segment leaders at BIA/Kelsey’s Leading in Local: Interactive Local Media event at San Francisco Airport.

“ServiceMagic/Home Advisor is (only) a couple of hundred million dollars. Angie’s has never made a profit. The market is ripe but no one is there yet,” said Home Depot Silicon Valley leader Anthony Rodio, who also serves as GM of the company’s Red Beacon contractor scheduling service. “The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is repeat business.”

Rodio noted that a real opportunity for the industry is that many millennials have moved away from DIY. “For some, their idea of a home project is upstreaming iTunes in the living room,” he said. But Home Depot is traditionally geared around DIY. The company hasn’t done enough to develop ‘Do it For Me’, said Roddio.

Serviz leader Zorik Gordon, the former ReachLocal leader, said that the void in the industry is that the segment is not transparent. Serviz will move away from unreasonable 300-500 percent upsells, and provide price charts, and reviews; it will also assign contractors, said Gordon, who says the startup will move beyond southern California, where it launched in July, and will reach 10-20 cities by the end of 2015.

Thumbtack CEO Marco Zappacosta noted that his company recently raised $100 million from Google and others. “What Google and others saw in us is that we have created a unique platform,” he said. “We have 600 unique categories.”

Thumbtack is taking a different approach than Serviz and The Home Depot’s Red Beacon in that it doesn’t assign jobs to service pros or collect money for jobs. Focusing on moving the money is “not the indicator” for the success of a transactional marketplace, he said.

The post At ILM 2014: Home Improvement Leaders Weigh in on Success Factors appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

After months of rumors, Amazon has entered the increasingly crowded service pro referral space with a beta test in nine markets. According to a dedicated web site for the launch, service pros will pay Amazon 20 percent for services that cost $1000 or less, and 15 percent above that amount, as well as monthly subscription fees — although those fees are waived through June 2015. The 20 percent fees are comprised of 15 percent service platform fees, and 5 percent transaction fees.

The service is launching with a strong focus on consumer electronic installation and repair, fitting with sales on the Amazon site. Auto and bike services are also featured, with more categories likely to be added. All pros must undergo background checks, which will cost $50 (plus $40 per employee); have appropriate licenses, and carry insurance. All listings will also feature Yelp reviews as well.

Amazon will be competing against a number of other players in the space, including market leaders such as Angie’s List and Home Advisor; Pro.com, a new site launched by former Amazon exec Matt Williams; Serviz, a new site launched by former ReachLocal exec Zorik Gordon; and The Home Depot’s Red Beacon service.

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The post 'Selling Services on Amazon' Launches Beta in Nine Markets appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

After months of rumors, Amazon has entered the increasingly crowded service pro referral space with a beta test in nine markets. According to a dedicated web site for the launch, service pros will pay Amazon 20 percent for services that cost $1000 or less, and 15 percent above that amount, as well as monthly subscription fees — although those fees are waived through June 2015. The 20 percent fees are comprised of 15 percent service platform fees, and 5 percent transaction fees.

The service is launching with a strong focus on consumer electronic installation and repair, fitting with sales on the Amazon site. Auto and bike services are also featured, with more categories likely to be added. All pros must undergo background checks, which will cost $50 (plus $40 per employee); have appropriate licenses, and carry insurance. All listings will also feature Yelp reviews as well.

Amazon will be competing against a number of other players in the space, including market leaders such as Angie’s List and Home Advisor; Pro.com, a new site launched by former Amazon exec Matt Williams; Serviz, a new site launched by former ReachLocal exec Zorik Gordon; and The Home Depot’s Red Beacon service.

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Angie’s List, which has recently seen a deterioration in its stock as investors have lost confidence in its ability to grow its premium subscription and ad model, has announced that it has gone Mobile First. The changeover is significant because the company, which has nearly three million users, has continued to support a wide variety of media. Many years after other companies went all digital, for instance, Angie’s has continued to provide personalized phone referrals to its well heeled (and older) home owner customer base.

The move to mobile first is accompanied by the launch of a new mobile app, which offers “concierge level” help for consumers seeking to hire the right service and medical professionals. It provides research for providers; shop for specific home improvement services; and “SnapFix” a project, automatically assigning service pros to projects based on specifications.

“We studied our members’ behavior and directly asked them what they want from us,” noted a company press release quoting founder Angie Hicks. “As a result, we’re not just connecting them to highly rated service companies through a swipe or a click, we’re stepping into the transaction, improving their experiences start to finish.”

A press note added that the new efforts are “symbolic of the corporate shift from just providing highly reliable information to getting in the middle of transactions to make the hiring process easier and the results better, faster.”

We’ll be diving deep into the future of Home Improvement services with local digital leaders from The Home Depot, Thumbtack and Serviz on Day 1 of the Leading in Local conference in San Francisco Dec. 3-5. You may register here.

The post Angie's List Goes 'Mobile First' appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Angie’s List, which has recently seen a deterioration in its stock as investors have lost confidence in its ability to grow its premium subscription and ad model, has announced that it has gone Mobile First. The changeover is significant because the company, which has nearly three million users, has continued to support a wide variety of media. Many years after other companies went all digital, for instance, Angie’s has continued to provide personalized phone referrals to its well heeled (and older) home owner customer base.

The move to mobile first is accompanied by the launch of a new mobile app, which offers “concierge level” help for consumers seeking to hire the right service and medical professionals. It provides research for providers; shop for specific home improvement services; and “SnapFix” a project, automatically assigning service pros to projects based on specifications.

“We studied our members’ behavior and directly asked them what they want from us,” noted a company press release quoting founder Angie Hicks. “As a result, we’re not just connecting them to highly rated service companies through a swipe or a click, we’re stepping into the transaction, improving their experiences start to finish.”

A press note added that the new efforts are “symbolic of the corporate shift from just providing highly reliable information to getting in the middle of transactions to make the hiring process easier and the results better, faster.”

We’ll be diving deep into the future of Home Improvement services with local digital leaders from The Home Depot, Thumbtack and Serviz on Day 1 of the Leading in Local conference in San Francisco Dec. 3-5. You may register here.

The post Angie’s List Goes ‘Mobile First’ appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

The Washington Post continues ramping up its vertical strategy, launching Service Alley to provide leads for home and trade professionals. The site, which is a standalone and not directly linked to Washingtonpost.com, follows the launch of other Post verticals, such as Capitol Dish.

The site currently serves Washington D.C., and its Virginia and Maryland suburbs. It efficiently divides listing categories in three main groups: “Cleaning Services,” “Inside the Home” and “Outside the Home.” It features full-fledged directories of providers built on licensed data; and a “Coupons in Washington D.C.” section.

In addition to procuring leads for home and trade providers, the service also has weekly deals of service providers with a strong viral element. If three friends buy a deal based on your recommendation, the deal is free for you. Only businesses that have been well reviewed are allowed to participate.

The site also has a convenient list of your own favorite providers that you can use for reference (although, in the spirit of review generation, it might be better to have made it a list of providers that you have actually reviewed).

Service Alley has also been designed to maximize its use of social media. Users can connect with their friends and neighbors via Facebook, and check out their recommendations in Service Alley’s directory, which is built from licensed data.

Currently, there are two tiers of participation for service providers. The free basic tier gives three free leads and some basic info and charges $9 every time a coupon is activated from the coupon directory. A “pro” tier is $30 a month (or $300 per year) and enables unlimited leads, multiple listings in different categories, testimonials and awards listings, and a discounted $3 coupon activation rate.

Interestingly, the engine that powers Service Alley is provided by TeachStreet, the Seattle-based site that connects consumers with classes and teachers. While TeachStreet remains focused on its own fast-growing activities, it turns out to have an engine that is totally compatible for home and trade providers, says The Post’s Tim Condon, who is director of new digital ventures.

Condon tells us that The Post determined that there was plenty of room for a new entrant for home and trade in town, and that it was time to get back in the water. The Post had tried out a number of home and trade-focused dot-com projects over the years, including a big effort with BigBook in 1998.

The Washington metro area, of course, with its strong demographic profile, is one of Angie’s List’s best markets. But home and trade leaders such as Angie’s List and ServiceMagic are relatively closed systems, says Condon. To use them, you either have to be a member or accept the leads they give you.

By jumping in the water now, The Post beat the likely entry of other home and trade sites, such as Redbeacon, ThumbTack, LikeList and HelpHive. It also gets a jump on efforts by existing providers such as Kudzu and ServiceMagic. The challenge — as it is for all these services — is to ramp up the sales efforts for this hard to reach but valuable segment.

The Post’s Tim Condon is a featured speaker at ILM East in Boston March 21-23.

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