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Magic

getmagicnow.com

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Re: Magic

#271

Post by iandanforth »

raldi wrote: post #231
cmikec wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We noticed that people were more confused by the ambiguity of the nondescript fee, than us just saying that we'd tell you the total amount. You are right though, we do need to figure out a better way to explain this. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know.

"We quote you one simple price that includes everything: The goods, the delivery, any expected gratuity, all service charges including our own, and any applicable taxes and fees. What you see is what you pay."

Can they use that verbatim? Because they should.

Re: Magic

#272

Post by willidiots »

zdrummond wrote: post #159
willidiots wrote: post #78

This is crazy, I was just brainstorming about this last week. You're basically layering concierges on top of remote hands. Awesome! I'm curious to see what you'll do to handle exceptional cases. I live in the boonies and am asking for a philly cheesesteak right now.

So did they deliver?

They offered! They found a "good cheesesteak place" about 30 miles from here (I believe it) and offered to have someone drive it out to me, but cautioned it would be very expensive & asked if I wanted them to get a quote. I declined, not THAT hungry for a cheesesteak tonight, but I'm super happy with the knowledge & result.

Re: Magic

#273

Post by rgovind »

Just FYI, My company used to offer Les Concierge for something very similar, until recently. They stopped it because people were not really using the service. So, inspite of the coolness of the startup, I am skeptical if it makes money.

Re: Magic

#274

Post by keithpeter »

Nice idea and like others here I really appreciate the simple plain web page. Best of luck with it all.

Just a thought for when this begins to scale: vetting of the people ordering the stuff. They will have names, email, delivery address and an idea of the income level/lifestyle of the person ordering. I'm assuming credit card details are on a payment system and not available to the people handing the requests.

PS: any customers complained about what they got yet?

Re: Magic

#275

Post by Artemis2 »

TylerE wrote: post #250
zak_mc_kracken wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The very fact that Apple has 800M credit cards on file is the reason why they know better than offering a service like this. Even if 10% of their users started using their service to require "magic", there is no way in hell even a company like Apple could scale an operation like this that's bottlenecked by humans.

Why not? 80m users is probably in-line with what some of the larger banks and insurance companies deal with. They're big call centers, but we're not talking entire cities here.

A concierge service is a lot more intensive than responding to the clients of a bank.

If Apple did this at their scale, they would probably end up very quickly having an (hopefully public) API for every business around, rather than having their agents call the same restaurant 10 times a day. That would really be a revolutionary way to consume.

Re: Magic

#276

Post by r00fus »

nileshtrivedi wrote: post #105
darrelld wrote: post #22

Loving the simplicity of it all. I just need to text a number. No app to install and grant access to my phone, no website to go and sign up to with my facebook account. Nothing. Just text a number and get what I want. It solves my problems by giving a path of least resistance to getting what I want. A company doing a similar thing was handing out fliers over the summer and they had an app to install. I thought the id…

You do need to give them your credit card details though, which is like signing up.

You interact briefly before you are asked to handover the CC details. That's a great draw.

Re: Magic

#277

Post by saraid216 »

avn2109 wrote: post #238
saraid216 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're saying that your coworker needs a real estate agent. Is there a reason, besides money, that he isn't using one? I say "besides money", because you said you would pay "a lot of money" for it, so you can clearly afford an agent.

No clue why he's doing it the way he is, and I know nothing about how to buy a house, but it sure sounds like a pain.

His reason is almost certainly money. An agent's commission isn't insignificant. It's the opportunity cost of, well... what he's doing.

If he's talking with contractors, he's probably also trying to figure out how to fix it up or modify it. I didn't need to talk with any contractors at all, so I don't know whether or not an agent would have helped.

Re: Magic

#278

Post by r00fus »

nighthawk24 wrote: post #126

Example screenshots show iMessage, but the number provided supports SMS-text only.

I can't tell you the number of times I knew the recipient had an iPhone and it still showed up green on Messages.

Re: Magic

#279

Post by anon012012 »

zaroth wrote: post #85

I love the idea, and the execution, but just one nit -- you say "no hidden fees", but I think bundling the fee into the total price is the definition of a hidden fee . If your examples itemized the fee it would be a different story. Other comments here express a similar anxiety, e.g. how much [extra] am I actually paying for this? Also, I know you're busy, but FYI CA state law requires you have a Privacy Policy. I wo…

When you pay at the restaurant you don't know about the extra of putting it together, and so I don't think they're morally obligated, but it's certainly controversial and something to think about.

Re: Magic

#280

Post by zerr »

exogen wrote: post #137

I just decided to try this out in Seattle. Here's how it went! http://brianbeck.com/images/magic.png (the minimum was from the sushi place, not Magic)

And how was it? :)

Not sure about surprise additions, but isn't it bit overpriced for one person quick lunch?

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