The parent company of HomeAdvisor, the home services on-demand marketplace, has announced the acquisition of Angie’s List, the early internet-based home services directory and review service. After the acquisition is completed by HomeAdvisor’s parent company, IAC/InteractiveCorp, the companies will be combined into a new publicly traded company called ANGI Homeservices.
As we’ve reported before, many Goliaths of the internet, including Google and Amazon, are pursuing home services marketplace strategies. Amazon’s is a pure play “uber model” while Google is focusing more on selling Google Ads and marketing support to service providers.
Yelp is testing a “Request a Quote” service. Other companies that have created home services marketplaces include TaskRabbit and ThumbTack. The category has even seen its first heavily backed startup fold: HomeJoy.com (dead link and no joy).
(For an excellent list of home services on-demand market places, see the one created by CB Insights.)
Angie’s List is one of the oldest and best-known internet brands. The company has used TV and radio marketing to push their service beyond the internet.cUnfortunately for the company, as more consumers became familiar with review services like Yelp and Google Business Pages, fewer consumers felt the need to pay for an Angie’s List’s membership. The company scrapped the membership fee, in favor of a freemium model: Members can access reviews for free but pay for subscriptions to services like a personal assistant to gather estimates, hire contractors and schedule jobs.
Even together, the two companies face a challenge: Currently, the businesses to be combined only have 4 percent of the market for home services.