Thumbtack.com Blog - Latest Comments

Re: That daily deal you bought? Maybe not so great a deal after all

Will — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 08:44:21 -0000

You actually should hire Groupon services. What you don't know is that Groupon takes 50% of the deal so in reality the handyman is working for half the rate you think he is and he will probably give you a better deal (than the Groupon deal) in the future, which is basically the whole point with Groupon services (make a connection for future business). The measly $1-2/hr that you guys figured out as overpayment can quickly evaporate when your cheapest hire will also walk with your stuff or do a shoddy job. Services competing on price only are doing it because they have nothing else to compete on.

Re: Get paid instantly: Introducing Book It Now and Instant Invoice

Sander Daniels — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 11:52:10 -0000

Hi Patrick,

Our refund policy is this:
We will fully refund your payment - no questions asked - if you don't hear from the potential customer within a week after sending your message, if you learn that they never intended to have the job done by anyone, or if you learn that the job was done by someone outside of Thumbtack.Just email support at thumbtack.com and ask for a refund on the job. It should be refunded with a few hours.

Hope this helps!

Sander

Re: Get paid instantly: Introducing Book It Now and Instant Invoice

Patrick — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 11:49:09 -0000

Where is the information about refunds when a potential client doesn't respond to a quote?

Re: Get paid instantly: Introducing Book It Now and Instant Invoice

Sander Daniels — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 18:35:42 -0000

Hi JBC, thanks for the input.

Can you explain a little bit further about this? I think there may be a misunderstanding. We thought these features would just be a convenient way for you to accept credit card for services you offer. Would love to hear more about what you think the implications are for these features.

Sander

Re: Get paid instantly: Introducing Book It Now and Instant Invoice

Sander Daniels — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 18:30:41 -0000

Hi Tom, very perceptive!

There are two kinds of payments on our site now:

1. Payments from you to Thumbtack for products/services we offer. For example, payments for background checks, leads, or subscriptions. These are handled by Braintree.

2. Peer-to-peer payments between Thumbtack members. This is the new feature we just rolled out. These are handled by PoundPay.

And yes, bringing in PoundPay to handle these payments is a technology decision. Peer-to-peer payments (as opposed to payments from you to Thumbtack) is a world unto itself insofar as payments goes. It requires highly specialized technology (for example, to ward off fraud).

Does this make sense?

Sander

Re: Get paid instantly: Introducing Book It Now and Instant Invoice

Tom Winkleman — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:19:01 -0000

Question on the switch to this new payment platform - why was the switch made? Your FAQs state you were using BrainTree. Was it a technology decision?

Re: Get paid instantly: Introducing Book It Now and Instant Invoice

Jbcremodeling — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 00:55:22 -0000

Way to further flood the service industry with price shoppers, as well as helping to drop the expected cost of services.
The companies which truly charge the least expensive rates will be short lived. These companies fail within a short period of time, yet their discounted rates linger with consumers, with high expectations. Thumbtack has joined the ranks of Groupon, without the sucess.
Nice of Thumbtack to be looking out for small business owners interests.

Re: Thumbtack raises $4.5MM Series A financing

thumbtack_com — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 15:28:17 -0000

Thanks Tyler! We're really excited about this news.

Re: Thumbtack raises $4.5MM Series A financing

Tyler Hayes — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 14:45:31 -0000

There is no shortage of impressive numbers in this post. Big ups to everyone, keep up the great work.

Thumbtack rocks (coming from a current consumer and former local service professional).

Re: New data shows undergraduate degree likely worth no more than a technical college degree

thumbtack_com — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 15:46:27 -0000

That's a great point. We might publish another blog post in the future on this topic - would be really interesting to see!

Re: New data shows undergraduate degree likely worth no more than a technical college degree

Megkv2 — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 15:36:22 -0000

I would be a lot more interested to know the how many customers and return customers individuals with undergraduate versus technical degrees received. When it comes to advertising a service online, anyone can charge whatever they want, the question is whether customers also value those services at the same price.

Re: Santa’s business: An in-depth look at the thriving Santa industry

tom wentz — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 11:30:42 -0000

Good information !!!!

Re: A/B test: New York Times, Washington Post logos help conversions; USA Today logo hurts conversions

Peter — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 15:55:25 -0000

It is a Good website, Good copy text, Good, great user friendly features / facilities. Question is how do you make your money ? as you rightly should, I mean Angie's List has always lost money.
What, from a potential investors view is your income stream/streams ?

Re: A/B test: New York Times, Washington Post logos help conversions; USA Today logo hurts conversions

thumbtack_com — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 23:27:34 -0000

Hey, we're just repeating what Wikipedia told us! :-)

Re: A/B test: New York Times, Washington Post logos help conversions; USA Today logo hurts conversions

ben knight — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 17:56:56 -0000

Good job, but come on, everybody knows that USA Today doesn't really have an honest claim to "the second-highest circulation of any U.S. newspaper." For one thing, it's only 5 days a week. For another, more important thing, USA Today has always given away most of its circulation for free, at hotels, etc., in effect cooking the circulation books ,

Re: Bigger and Better: Thumbtack Celebrates New Milestones

Squidoo Make Money — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 13:23:02 -0000

ThumbtackThumbtack will be the new Cyberspace STAR in no time!

Re: Case study: Are daily deal discounts inflated?

Blakebattlesr — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 13:09:13 -0000

not bogus I wash houses and if i did a deal on a house that cost $200 to wash you can not discounted 50% and give 40% commission. So you show the reg price as $450.

450
-225 (50%)
--------
225
--90 (40% commission
-------
135

So you knocked $65 bucks off not $225

PS
In most cases you only wanted $150 you say $200 because people always want to feel as if they made a good deal.

Re: Case study: Are daily deal discounts inflated?

thumbtack_com — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 12:36:44 -0000

This is really interesting, very insightful. I didn't realize this about the hotel industry - sounds like it could be very similar.

Thanks for letting us know - definitely adds an interesting twist to this case study!

Re: Case study: Are daily deal discounts inflated?

TravelDiva — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 12:19:39 -0000

Interesting food for thought...Groupon and Living Social can be great tools for marketing. But it's no secret they target quantity, not necessarily quality. On one hand, you're driving traffic to your company that would not have been there before. On the other hand, Groupon and Living Social have such stringent criteria on the percentage of discount you're offering (it has to be a SMOKIN deal, ripe to expire SOON!), that I can see how vendors would be pressured to inflate prices.

On the other hand, I can see vendors thinking of their services as hotels do - "this inventory is perishable." Just because it's not food on a shelf, doesn't mean it won't expire tomorrow. If you want this promotion to make your phones ring TODAY, you better put something remarkable enough out there to entice buyers to take action - it's why the Groupon/Living Social models work. Hotels have a "rack" rate, usually so exorbitant that the only thing it is used for is discounting off of. For example, the rack rate at a Holiday Inn may be around $250 a night - that's a lot for a Holiday Inn. But it's really the base rate that everything else is loaded from, what's posted on AAA and in travel brochures, etc. So a 50% discount on Expedia sounds great at $125, but really that's around the the going price anyway. Everybody wins - the rate integrity is protected, the discount draws in the consumer (who is happy with the price), and the hotel has not really "discounted" anything to drive revenue.

Perhaps the same is true for these inflated service industry discounts - They have their desired ("rack") price point (say $150 for 2 hours of cleaning), It would be great to never have a price objection on the desired $150, but let's face it, times are tough. So there's the price that's more competitively sellable most of the time (say $80), then there's the 50% discounted Groupon ($75).

In the end, I still always have to ask myself when the enticing Groupons and Living Socials come across (or if I'm at the mall, or Costco, my downfall): Is it ON sale, or is it FOR sale? Just because it's deeply discounted, or has a screaming yellow price tag, doesn't mean it's a smokin' deal. Educated consumers will still consider the end price, not the percentage off.

Re: Case study: Are daily deal discounts inflated?

Foodie — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 07:29:08 -0000

It's even worse for services with variable costs and not fixed costs (ie - the restaurant industry). Using the same example in the comments of $50 for $25, and going with a simple 50/50 split, that gives the restaurant only $12.50 from the $50 sale. Unfortunately, depending on the items purchased, food costs can run anywhere from 25-35% - very typical across the restaurant industry. 25% of $50 is $12.50 - and that's assuming it's a 50/50 split, and the restaurant has outstanding food costs. Terrible model. Restaurants lose money on each voucher that comes in the door. They're praying for the purchased vouchers that don't get redeemed to try to break even. Take a look at tangotab.com - they're model is much more beneficial for the restaurant industry.And they feed hungry people each time you reserve an offer. Worth a look.

Re: Case study: Are daily deal discounts inflated?

Shiva — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 11:22:34 -0000

Yes. I bought 2 restaurant coupons worth $25 each for about $5. That weekend when I used one of the coupons for a dinner for 4, my bill with coupon was more than without (!)

I did not bother to use the other coupon. Its still with me and the restaurant is closed. I get emails from groupon to cash or exchange it for another restaurant. I don't dare.

Re: Case study: Are daily deal discounts inflated?

Wedding Ring Blog — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 10:03:47 -0000

Interesting article. I always wondered if that in some cases a rate or price for a product or service would be inflated to make up for the discount. My experience with Groupon has been good, but this is an aspect that you should keep an eye on.

Re: Case study: Are daily deal discounts inflated?

Christy — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 12:40:58 -0000

I didn't see any mention of restaurant deals, and I believe if my math is correct, buying a $50 certificate for $25 is still saving 50% so the restaurant deals are straight up. However, I did check direct for a travel deal that was being offered, and if you went direct to their site they offered lower rates than you could get with the deal with Living Social. I don't think they should be allowed to do this if they are using Living Social to market the vacations for them - makes Living Social looks like a rip off!!

Re: Case study: Are daily deal discounts inflated?

Bert — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 12:49:17 -0000

Again.... you're link to the other article is the same as this one. Completely biased and useless. Of course local contractors change their prices based off of the customer/job. But your article(s) are not about that, they are directed at the daily deal industry and not at the local service industry as you claim in your reply to my first post. If you want to write an article on the local service industry as you claim then do so. You have boldly listed on your site above that you have over 200,000 local services signed up for your services. Sounds like a pretty good pool of subjects to do some research.

Re: Case study: Are daily deal discounts inflated?

thumbtack_com — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 10:25:49 -0000

Hi Bert,

Your points are very well taken.

The underlying issue we're examining here is pricing opacity in the local services industry. That is, most people do not know - and would not know where to begin looking for - average pricing in their area for common local services like house cleaning, painting, photography, etc.

We think consumers are harmed every day by this lack of transparency for pricing of local services.

The post above is just one potential example of how consumers may be misled by opaque pricing. Another example is a post we previously published on the daily deals industry: http://www.thumbtack.com/blog/...

However, we suspect that there are many more examples of this - perhaps far more insidious - that occur every day. In particular, we suspect that there is significant price discrimination happening in the local services industry.

For example, it is very possible for a painter, house cleaner, or photographer to change the price they charge to an individual based on the person's race, age, neighborhood, appearance, gender, or any of a number of other factors. We suspect that this kind of discrimination happens every day, and it is only possible because pricing in the local services industry is so opaque.

We hope to publish more posts in the future on these issues.