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.
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.
- The Fall of Roe and the Failure of the Feminist Industrial Complex
- What Trump Knew About January 6
- The Ocean Is Climate Change’s First Victim and Last Resort
- Column: 6 Proven Ways to Reduce Gun Violence
- Ads Are Officially Coming to Netflix. Here's What That Means for You
- Jenny Slate on the Unifying Power of a Well-Heeled Shell Named Marcel
- Column: The FDA's Juul Ban May Not be a Pure Public Health Triumph
- What the Supreme Court’s Abortion Decision Means for Your State