Building Connection Spring 2018

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Spring 2019 ACROSS THE TRADES 5 1
TABLE 1: Find-a-tradie websites and features
WEBSITE FEATURES AIRTASKER HIPAGES ONEFLARE SERVICESEEKING
www.serviceseeking.
Membership Fees Optional Optional
Commission Fees
Pay-per-lead Fees
Capped Numbers of Leads
Customers Define Quotes
Licensed Trades Vetted
Customers Provide Reviews
or low volumes of leads (specialist water engineering services,
top-end architectural glazing, etc)?
∫ Demography – is the trade business operating in a low- or
high-density catchment? Does the local catchment feature
mainly new or old building stock, with high or low owner
occupancy levels?
∫ Job complexity – are customers likely to present realistic job
descriptions and have credible pricing expectations?
∫ Job costs – are average job costs small (hundreds of dollars)
or high (many thousands of dollars)?
∫ Work demand – is the trade business seeking year-round or
only intermittent work from the website?
∫ Tradie capability – is the tradie capable of rapidly
evaluating leads, and confident enough to make a
professional pitch for work?
With these criteria in mind, let’s take a closer look at each of
the four major providers.
Airtasker
Established: 2011 | Staff: 120
BMH says: “Airtasker enables me to reach
more customers easily and be assured of
work that is accepted and payments for that
work. I use Airtasker for top up work when
my regular work is slow. I have found it to be
really effective.” ÌÌÌÌÌ
Shadzo says: “I joined Airtasker 1+ years
ago as a professional tradesperson with
employees. Unskilled, unqualified people
are allowed to bid on the rubbish on offer.
I really feel for customers when they get
absolute rubbish work from people on this
site. It is a joke.” Ì ÌÌÌÌ
As noted above, Airtasker is the only commission-based
website operating in this sector. Typically, a consumer posts
a task description and proposed fee/budget on the site and
invites all relevant registered businesses in the area to
respond. Once tradies have expressed interest in the job, the
customer then chooses their preferred business and makes
an escrow payment to Airtasker. Following completion of the
job, the tradie makes on online request for payment and the
customer then releases the funds, minus 15% commission to
Airtasker.
The deficiencies of this process in relation to the
professional trade sector are easy to spot. It’s not always
easy to establish an appropriate service
fee beforea tradie actually inspects a
job. Of course, reliable cost estimates
might be quite straightforward for certain
simple tasks, particularly those that are
effectively ‘build to a budget’ projects;
however, more specialised tasks involving
plumbing or electrical repairs, for instance,
are virtually impossible for lay customers
to diagnose or price effectively. Also,
dispute resolution arising from differences
between upfront quotes and final (post-
inspection) cost estimates are far from
clear: for instance, what if a customer has
no capacity/intention to pay for a job that turns out to have
a higher complexity and cost than originally described? The
tradie might have to abandon the job without compensation of
any kind – a wasteful outcome that might have been avoided
if there had been some mechanism for better tradie-customer
communication upfront.
Assessing the
appropriateness
of any given find-
a-tradie website is
a highly nuanced
affair.