Facebook has silently launched hyperlocal listing of service providers in India. This new listing can be found on facebook.com/services. Facebook has listed over 80 services including plumbing, beauty, home care, pet services, medical, health, financial, and DIY services.
If you search for a service or use the existing given link, you will see the name, number address and availability time of that service provider. You can get the phone numbers or book online to avail the service of any provider. To help people, reviews are also there.
This is in very early stage and hence it is not available on mobile apps. In coming days, we can expect more options like filtering. We can also expect Messenger integration for make it easier to contact service providers. We already know that Facebook is working on bringing Messenger as a primary tool for online chat support.
Facebook has over 2 million small and medium business using its platform. So, it was not hard for Facebook to bring service providers on its platform.
This new tool is a big threat to many service aggregators of hyperlocal services like Housejoy, QuikrServices, Taskbob, LocalOye, and UrbanClap. If we see the Indian hyperlocal service marker, around 530 local services companies and 132 home services are now running in Indian market. On average, these operators in India receive 4,000-6,000 orders daily. These startups have also cumulatively raised over $180 million. These operators also charge 10-30% commission from service providers .
In just one step, Facebook has shocked this big market. Facebook is not charging any commission for redirecting customers to these service providers.
