Christmas Comes Early With On-demand Local Services

Read original story on: VentureBeat

This holiday season, Banana Republic is in a giving mood, partnering up with not one, not two, but four local services. The national retailer is providing its customers with free credits for services on Shyp, Deliv, Curb, and TaskRabbit. The best part? No purchase is required to receive these perks; you just need to walk into a Banana Republic store.

With such generous offers, the company aims to make the holiday shopping a little easier for its customers, while giving the local services a boost. And when shopping is made easier, shoppers naturally tend to shop more. It is a win-win-win solution for all parties involved, and that’s why more retailers, especially the brick-and-mortar ones, should get closer to on-demand local services.

Amazon Branches Into Food Delivery & Take Out

Read original story on: TechCrunch

In the past few months, Amazon has expanded its grocery delivery to more citieslaunched its point-of-sale service Amazon Local Register, and even opened three pop-up stores in NYC and California. Now it looks like the ecommerce giant will be diving deeper into the local services market with new features quietly added in Amazon Local app for food delivery and take out. Right now the new service seems to be limited to Seattle only, but it marks another step in Amazon’s ambitious plans to branch into the physical world.

Why Amazon Is Expanding Into The Local Service Market

For years, Amazon has been dominating global ecommerce by being the “everything store” of Internet. But one thing has been notably absent from Amazon’s offerings: services. Sure, you can buy customized 3D-printed toys from Amazon with just a few clicks, but you can’t use it to schedule a plumber to come and fix your toilet. That may be about to change.

According to Reuters, Amazon is reportedly closing in on the local services market that includes everything from handyman work to childcare. Its established infrastructure and existing relationship with online shoppers would make it a strong contender in local service market.