Why is that so crazy? Depending on the service cost, my time could be worth more than having to deal with the headaches of finding and dealing with a trustworthy vender.
Consider we're talking about $150 installation for something in my house, like a TV. That could mean knocking holes in the wall. Searching Yelp reviews and interviewing contractors can be time consuming. Then, if something goes wrong, my wall could be ruined. Taking the contractor to court to recover damages is a massive investment.
That might not be worth the trouble if I could have Amazon send someone and cover all headaches. It becomes dead-simple. "I'll just use Amazon's guy"
There's no question, it's a premium service, but you're getting real peace of mind with it. It's not like you're only paying for a brand name, you're also getting a guarantee from a trusted company.
Even Geek Squad's rate is too high. Mounting a TV onto your wall is not a hard thing to do. Find studs, attach mount to wall, attach mount to TV, put on wall. I've done it several times. Granted, it's not fun, but it's not I'd-rather-pay-$150-to-not-do-this non-fun.
Even if you're a high-paid professional it's likely cheaper to do it yourself (assuming opportunity cost for this time was work, and not, you know, enjoying your weekend).
(IMO the TV wall mounting prices are completely out of line with the difficulty of the task. Compared to tire installation that takes more time, tooling, and personal risk, I'm really surprised that it costs so much.)
"Compared to tire installation that takes more time, tooling, and personal risk,"
Don't forget liability, most failure modes involving tires cascade into personal injury auto accident. I would guess the most likely epic fail of similar likelihood for a TV installation would be dropping the TV while installing it. Or maybe drilling into a water pipe while installing it, either way death is quite possible with cars and highly unlikely with a TV.
Two things always "get" me about hiring a pro even though I can afford it. The first is I do it exactly the way I want it. Not possible to install my TV 3 inches too far to the right or some idiot company policy to minimize liability or whatever. The second is the opportunity cost of hiring a pro is astounding. A pro is going to have a 4 hour window 9-1 next Tuesday so I need to take time off work and cancel my life for four continuous weekday hours, but I have a SSD awaiting installation on my desk at home and if I get a half hour wednesday night around 8:14pm I'm fine, my window for me to do it is dynamic and hyperflexible and much narrower than a pro and if I'm interrupted its simply not an issue. Its just more convenient to do it myself than to deal with someone else. I could afford to hire someone to take the trash bag from my kitchen to the trash can by the garage, but the hassle of contracting with another person exceeds the minimal hassle of walking it out there myself.
Most of the services aren't available in my area so I didn't look too deeply, but the costs as a whole look pretty high. All of the assemble-something types of tasks look to be in the $200 range. While none of these fall into the "what fun!" category for me, they also don't fall into the "pay as much as the thing cost for a 2 or 3 hours of uninteresting but not difficult work" category either.
Frankly, I mostly know how to get hold of somewhat expensive professionals to do tasks that I can't easily do myself. What I want is cheap labor to do things I don't want to spend the weekend doing.
You have a higher opinion of the value of Amazon's guarantee and brand in this space than I do. You're talking independent contractors here (just like Home Depot and many others use today) and you can expect lots of outcomes between didn't show up or didn't do the promised task and did a perfect job. Even with contractors I know and trust, things don't always work out perfectly when you're dealing with unexpected problems on the fly.
For me, the potentially interesting aspect is "handyman" type tasks that fall outside the range of services you can have done through Home Depot, Sears, my local plumber or electrician, etc. Though I would guess it's significantly more expensive than you can get from giving someone local some cash (assuming you can find the right person).
> ou have a higher opinion of the value of Amazon's guarantee and brand in this space than I do.
In my personal experience, they're one of the highest rated companies I've dealt with, in terms of customer service. They've earned that credit with me over the years that I've purchased items from them.
Oh, they've been fine with me as well. But with products, "good customer service" translates into "stick it back in the box, put on this label, and set it out for UPS to pick up." Dealing with a lot of home improvement/repair projects that aren't quite perfect seems more complicated. The model can certainly work for a lot of well-defined tasks but, then, I can get things like appliance or straightforward minor plumbing repairs done pretty straightforwardly today. And they look pricey for assembling furniture and the like.
Consider we're talking about $150 installation for something in my house, like a TV. That could mean knocking holes in the wall. Searching Yelp reviews and interviewing contractors can be time consuming. Then, if something goes wrong, my wall could be ruined. Taking the contractor to court to recover damages is a massive investment.
That might not be worth the trouble if I could have Amazon send someone and cover all headaches. It becomes dead-simple. "I'll just use Amazon's guy"
There's no question, it's a premium service, but you're getting real peace of mind with it. It's not like you're only paying for a brand name, you're also getting a guarantee from a trusted company.