I recently came across a site that helps bridge the gap for service contractors. It’s almost exactly what you are talking about. www.hireahelper.com gives service people the opportunity to use the web to gain leads and grow their small business.

Much better post than the last one : )

I would also add that many people assume that e-commerce is a product based site (hard goods or digital downloads). I see high end service based e-commerce sites as being an under tapped market. Mainly, because these services require extensive expertise and personal service and are not possible for the Wal-mart’s and Amazon’s of the world to monopolize. (at least not yet…)

So if you’re starting a home improvement themed e-commerce site, why not sell watergarden installations, landscape maintenance, etc… in addition to your products. The market is wide open for local service based ecommerce sites.

More and more people would love for this scenario to happen: wake up, notice grass needs to be mowed (not this part), go online and purchase grass mowing service, go to work, come home and the yard is freshly mowed. There’s a lot of people with more money than time and the majority of service contractors don’t have websites.

Local service verticals are springing up now, but it’s not too late to capture a piece of the market. Also many of these verticals are just directories with little content. An industry expert could clearly distinguish himself as a better choice than a vertical directory that is just providing yellow page style listings.

Also service based e-commerce sites require no inventory, just relationship building and negotiating with local contractors.