Earlier this week, the company announced a deal resulting in a partnership with Rejuvenation, a home goods store owned by Williams-Sonoma, “to offer assembly and installation services to customers buying online or in-stores,” the Seattle Times reported. “Customers can add ‘Porch Home Services’ to their digital shopping cart, or opt-in while shopping in brick-and-mortar stores, to get connected with a Porch contractor.”
The move makes Porch — and its partners — competitive with the similar Amazon Home Services, which extended to 30 major metro areas as of April 2016. Rejuvenation marks the fourth such partnership Porch has made, including Lowe’s, ATG Stores, and Wayfair.
Offering the assembly and installation of the products sold in partner stores and websites, users can opt to purchase from their favorite retailers with easy integration to Porch.com’s vast home services marketplace.
The advantage to Porch is the ability to take a cut from the retailer’s sales, while giving those retailers a boost in sales and customers a simple way to get housework done, all at the point of sale.
For Amazon, the benefit is similar, but through vertically integrated models. As the Seattle Times wrote in April, “Amazon Home Services not only adds a new segment to that pillar, but also enables its online store to sell more things, by, say, selling both a new TV and the service to mount it on a wall.”
While Porch’s new partnership certainly competes with Amazon’s Home Services division, the Seattle Times noted potential difficulty attracting customers away from Amazon, “which has the advantage of a popular brand and loyal customer base.”
As for the deal with Rejuvenation, Porch’s services will be available in 28 Rejuvenation markets, including the greater Seattle area.
