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Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

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Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#31

Post by smelendez »

jacquesm wrote: post #17
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My personal theory is that TaskRabbit is too general purpose for people to think to use it. When I am at a bar and want to be at my house, it's really easy for me to think of an app that will solve my problem. If I don't have time to assemble the elaborate toy train set I bought for my kid, it will probably never occur to me that I could pay someone to drop in and do that task for me, even if I would happily pay some…

> If I don't have time to assemble the elaborate toy train set I bought for my kid, it will probably never occur to me that I could pay someone to drop in and do that task for me, even if I would happily pay someone if they offered. That's the kind of problem nobody should ever have in the first place. The whole point is to work together on it, not just to give it. To have some stranger put it together defeats the pu…

I think that's not contradicting OP's point. It's a "long tail" type of problem--nobody's going to buy a Super Bowl ad for Uber for model train assembly. Not even every model train buyer wants it. (Incidentally, I can think of plenty of situations where you would give a child a model train and not be willing or able to assemble it and still have it be a net gain for the kid).

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#33

Post by jagger27 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #26
Domenic_S wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holy cow, you spent $20k on Ikea kitchen cabinets? Edit: Wow, you guys are touchy. For $20k you could get fully custom cabinets from a local shop made with cabinet-grade plywood for a typically-sized kitchen.

Ikea kitchens are very nice.

They used to be much worse.

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#34

Post by ghaff »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #7
ghaff wrote: post #2

I find it interesting how some types of personal service companies seem to resonate with people but a lot don't. I suspect TaskRabbit never really made it big because of some combination of transaction costs associated with one-off only somewhat standardized tasks and the fact that, presented with a bill to assemble cheap Ikea furniture or to pickup their laundry, most people will decide they'd just as soon do it the…

My personal theory is that TaskRabbit is too general purpose for people to think to use it. When I am at a bar and want to be at my house, it's really easy for me to think of an app that will solve my problem. If I don't have time to assemble the elaborate toy train set I bought for my kid, it will probably never occur to me that I could pay someone to drop in and do that task for me, even if I would happily pay some…

I also just don't have that many one-off tasks around home that are

-- Big enough to be worth getting someone to do for me

-- A task that I can have someone do for me with fairly simple instructions

-- Something I'm willing to pay someone else to do for me

I already have a lawn service and an occasional housekeeper and borrow a neighbor's handyman [for brush clearing] from time to time. But most of the "wouldn't it be nice is this were all organized/cleaned" stuff around my house aren't really things I could delegate.

I also just don't seem to live in a critical mass area for TaskRabbit. Just did a search for a handyman and one came up at $90/hr and a 71% positive rating. I think I'll pass.

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#35

Post by TylerE »

shimon wrote: post #30

This is an interesting move, a design/manufacturing/retail company buying a labor marketplace company. Ikea has grown a ton based on having widely appealing products at extremely low prices. Their growth over the past decade has been driven by expanding their physical retail presence on the one-giant-store-per-city model. The store build-out on this model may be done, at least in the US. Still, many potential buyers…

> The store build-out on this model may be done, at least in the US.

It most definitely is NOT. For instance the nearest Ikea to the Raleigh/Triangle area is over 2 hours away.

There are 24 US states without a single Ikea store.

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#36

Post by jessriedel »

TylerE wrote: post #35
shimon wrote: post #30

This is an interesting move, a design/manufacturing/retail company buying a labor marketplace company. Ikea has grown a ton based on having widely appealing products at extremely low prices. Their growth over the past decade has been driven by expanding their physical retail presence on the one-giant-store-per-city model. The store build-out on this model may be done, at least in the US. Still, many potential buyers…

> The store build-out on this model may be done, at least in the US. It most definitely is NOT. For instance the nearest Ikea to the Raleigh/Triangle area is over 2 hours away. There are 24 US states without a single Ikea store.

It may be that they have mostly saturated in the markets where they think they are competitive.

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#37

Post by EternalData »

I could see this making sense -- TaskRabbit only makes sense if there's economies of scale on the demand side -- I imagine that's hard to generate with the tasks they have on there. I've only ever ordered one TaskRabbit -- and yes, it was to assemble Ikea furniture.

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#38

Post by baldfat »

aoenstkn4nto wrote: post #20

I hope this improves IKEA's absolutely awful installation experience. I recently did some kitchen cabinets, and while the people who did the actual install were great, everything about the experience was awful. IKEA contracted it out to Traemand, who sub-contracted it out to a local company. The local company was really hard to get ahold of and kept losing paperwork and not scheduling things. Once they did schedule s…

That is why they bought TaskRabbit is my guess. With TaskRabbit the whole service should be streamlined to just Ikea and the installer?

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#39

Post by niftich »

TylerE wrote: post #35
shimon wrote: post #30

This is an interesting move, a design/manufacturing/retail company buying a labor marketplace company. Ikea has grown a ton based on having widely appealing products at extremely low prices. Their growth over the past decade has been driven by expanding their physical retail presence on the one-giant-store-per-city model. The store build-out on this model may be done, at least in the US. Still, many potential buyers…

> The store build-out on this model may be done, at least in the US. It most definitely is NOT. For instance the nearest Ikea to the Raleigh/Triangle area is over 2 hours away. There are 24 US states without a single Ikea store.

They have recently began a large wave of expansion [1] in the US. Raleigh (Cary) is getting one soon. So is Norfolk, Nashville, Jacksonville, Columbus OH, Milwaukee; they're also beginning to build second (or additional) locations in large metros like Chicago, DFW, Phoenix.

[1] http://www.ikea.com/us/en/about_ikea/newsroom/expansion_plan...

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#40

Post by ribosometronome »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #22
jacquesm wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I don't have time to assemble the elaborate toy train set I bought for my kid, it will probably never occur to me that I could pay someone to drop in and do that task for me, even if I would happily pay someone if they offered. That's the kind of problem nobody should ever have in the first place. The whole point is to work together on it, not just to give it. To have some stranger put it together defeats the pu…

Unless they wanted to dress up in a three piece suit with a top hat and smoke a cigar while they watch the train set being assembled in order to live out some kind of bizarre railroad executive fantasy possibly inspired by too many re-reads of Atlas Shrugged. Point is, the purpose of toys is to have fun. I wouldn't regard my example to be any different than spending one's disposable income on a trip to Vegas or a VR…

Who didn't aspire to be the Fat Controller when watching Thomas the Tank Engine?
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