How is Amazon Home Services affecting Local

[Stephen DrumBeat Marketin]

Hi all,
I am wondering after looking at Amazon Home Services how much of the local services search traffic it is getting. It is easy to use, and Google's response has not yet been very robust. Given that it allows a person to easily get an estimate and costs the searcher nothing, how fast is it's market share growing.
Stephen

 

[Linda Buquet]

Great question Stephen. I'd be curious to hear as well!

 

[Phil Rozek]

Hey Stephen,

I'm not knowledgeable enough to answer those good questions of yours, but here's what little I've observed/concluded about AHS so far:

1. Because it's Amazon, I'm sure Home Services is slowly getting bigger, and is worth getting a small piece of early on. Over time, I wouldn't be surprised if they stomped HomeAdvisor and similar sites.

2. Unless it meets the same fate as Amazon Local, which they gave the Old Yeller treatment about a week ago.

3. It doesn't seem to enjoy much visibility in Google - the way a Yelp or Angie's List or even a BBB does. It's more of a closed ecosystem.

4. They won't list you if you're in a niche category. You'd better be a remodeler or home-theater installer, or in some similarly big and recognized field.

5. You can get reviews there. (Which reminds me: gotta add Amazon to my list.)

6. No idea how much referral traffic AHS brings you. I suspect little. Most of the transaction takes place on Amazon.

 

[Stephen DrumBeat Marketin]

Thanks Phil,
I was just wondering because a client was talking about using them. Not surprised that there are no stats, but I suspect there would be if it was wildly successful. Still, it is worth watching because it is very simple to use.
Stephen

 

[theitsage]

I signed up for AHS since the very beginning (May 2015). I received 3 service requests total in 6 months (compare to 3-5 calls or email inquiries per day through Organic and local search).

This platform the way it is will not work. I need to price out every single service I offer; the list gets very long in no time. For most professional services, things are not cookie-cutter for this approach to work. Amazon also dictates a price range for services which I have to stay within. On top of that, I'm only doing one niche of computer repair which most people ignore and for which AHS doesn't have the right categories.

It's not worth it in my opinion.

 

[Blake Denman]

I have a client that I set up on AHS. Has received nothing yet (been about 2 months) but we got an unstructured citation out of it