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ACROSS THE TRADES Spring 2019
TRADIES ON THE LINE
OPINIONS ABOUT ‘FIND-A-TRADIE’-STYLE WEBSITES ARE DIVIDED, WITH DEVOTEES AND
DETRACTORS EQUALLY FIRM IN THEIR CONVICTIONS.
JOHN POWER
LOOKS AT THE ADVANTAGES AND
DRAWBACKS OF DIFFERENT ONLINE JOB SOURCING PLATFORMS.
T
he online review didn’t mince its words: ‘Good for
customers. Bad for tradies’. These were the opening
remarks about one particular job-sourcing website,
as posted by a tradie on the independent review portal
ProductReview.com.au, on 5 April 2019.
It’s not difficult to find negative comments from tradies
about ‘find-a-tradie’ websites; nor is it difficult, on the other
hand, to find extremely positive feedback about solid leads
and good business growth. So which opinion is right?
The appropriateness of any given find-a-tradie website is a
highly nuanced affair.
At present there are four main find-a-tradie-style websites
in Australia: Airtasker, ServiceSeeking, Oneflare and Hipages.
In broad terms, all these sites are matchmakers: customers
lodge a description of their job online and, in some cases, a
budget or quote range. The website then provides leads for
that job to its own database of pre-registered trade businesses
servicing that geographical area – then it’s up to the trade
business to pursue the lead, if desired, and win the job. All
these sites operate nationally and avow customer numbers in
the tens of thousands per month.
NB: The above websites each have different business
structures: ServiceSeeking requires its registered trade
businesses to pay ongoing monthly fees; others, such as
Hipages and Oneflare, operate primarily on a ‘pay per lead’
basis; Airtasker, on the other hand, does not involve any
ongoing fees or ‘pay per lead’ costs, but instead charges a flat
15% commission on completed jobs. For a detailed overview of
the main features of each website, see Table 1.
Clearly, the various find-a-tradie platforms available
in Australia differ in fundamental ways, and the
appropriateness (or otherwise) of any given model for trade
businesses gets very complicated very quickly, depending on
considerations like:
∫
Nature of the trade business – is the trade business dependent
on large volumes of leads (handyman, small painting tasks, etc),
COVER STORY