Amazon wants to help you find a handyman

Amazon will sell you an air conditioner, and then it’ll find someone to install it for you, too.

The online retailer is connecting customers with local appliance installers like plumbers and electricians with a new offering called Amazon Local Services.

After adding an item to their virtual cart, customers will see installation offers from Amazon after buying items like an air conditioner or a car stereo. A recent search for air conditioners in New York yielded installation price options in the range of $99 to $120. Each offering came with appointment time preferences which then added the installation cost to the sticker cost of the air conditioner.

An anonymous source briefed on the plan told the Wall Street Journal that the service is now offered in New York, Los Angeles and Seattle. Amazon’s new service will likely help the company compete with brick-and-mortar stores and other online retailers by making it more simple to install complicated appliances. It could also drive business to local installers.

The company is now testing Amazon Local Services in nine different cities. If you search for "tv mounts" a little box pops that asks if you a TV mount installed. Clicking through takes you to a list of all the available TV-mounting services and the option to add the service to your cart. Amazon even offers its "happiness guarantee" for the services so if the service stinks, you can take that up with Amazon instead of the local purveyor. Of course, you could also just do a Google search for "tv installation" or something, but that would require you to leave the Amazon ecosystem.

One electrician in Los Angeles who had signed onto the program told the Journal that when he lands a job through Amazon Local Services, he pays Amazon a fee.

Source : Sam Frizell - Time
http://fortune.com/2014/11/25/amazon-wants-to-help-you-find-a-handyman/