Yandex launches a marketplace for household services. The new web-based service exchange allows providers of a variety of services ranging from appliance repairs and installations to cleaning and moving home to find their clients, while those who require such services can find the best deals. The marketplace website lists service providers’ information, including their prices and client reviews. Service consumers can leave their feedback and also rate the quality of the service they received to help others choose the best provider.
The new marketplace, called Yandex.Master, where ‘master’ means someone who does their job really well, is currently available in Moscow and St Petersburg. Residents in the two of Russia’s largest cities make about 800,000 searches about help with small errands and household services per month. Yandex.Master was designed to bring transparency, structure and safety to a chaotic market of private household services in Russia. Provider ratings and client feedback on the marketplace are expected to promote open competition, which in its turn will organise service pricing and improve the quality of services in general.
Yandex has already seen success with structuring an offline market. Yandex.Taxi, our taxi service aggregator, was launched in Moscow in 2011 when the ‘gypsy cab’ culture reigned on the road. Random pricing, old and dirty cars, unpredictable and illegal drivers, road accidents have all been eliminated with the introduction of a desktop service supplemented with an app that was based on automated algorithms, aggregation, ranking, client feedback and a tight control of service quality. It took only slightly more than one year to completely transform the taxi service market in Moscow and St Petersburg and make a taxi ride predictable price-wise, safe and enjoyable for any client. Taxi service companies in these two cities receive more than 700,000 taxi bookings per month through Yandex.Taxi. It’s a valuable client source for them and it makes them care about their reputation, while Yandex receives percentage from each booking.
Just like Yandex.Taxi, Yandex.Master also has a strict quality control system, which makes sure each service provider is vetted before their offer appears on the website. Yandex.Master’s quality control team make trial service requests and manage negative feedback. Provider’s feedback history and pricing also play a part in how service quality is maintained. Yandex.Master is available at master.yandex.ru and will also be released soon as an app for iPhone. Currently, the marketplace partners with over 70 service providers and aggregators. To try this form of marketing, service providers will be able to promote their offers on the marketplace for free until 2015, when we’re planning to introduce a pay-per-lead model.