Amazon Home Services Comes to Philadelphia

Amazon Home Services has come to Philadelphia. The service, which connects customers with service pros to fulfill a wide variety of in-home tasks, just piloted locally. Are the multilingual instructions on your IKEA bookcase getting the better of you? Need help mounting your brand-new flat screen TV on the wall? Looking to hire a magician for your kid’s next birthday party? Amazon can help with any of the above.

Get it done with Amazon Home Services… for a steep price. Photo: PhillyMag

The new Amazon extension just launched in several cities. It is aimed at connecting Amazon consumers with help for the work they need done. It’s a pretty easy process: you enter your ZIP code and select your choice from a lengthy list of available tasks. Then you tell Amazon when you need the job done. They then connect you with a professional who will come out and perform whatever it is you wanted. Your credit card is not charged until the work is done.

It should be noted that many of the “offered” services, including hiring a singer and hiring a silk aerialist, aren’t yet available in Philadelphia. The service is expanding, however, and it’s assumed that the list of offerings will only grow. In the meantime you can have someone come out and debug your computer for $205, put together a treadmill for $175, or assemble a charcoal grill for $150. That TV I mentioned earlier? Getting it hung could cost as much as $299.

Amazon says that all its professionals are screened with interviews, background checks and reference checks and that they are licensed, where applicable, and insured. Perhaps that’s why the services cost so much. It will be interesting to see how Amazon Home Services fares as it grows.