Crate And Barrel Partners With Handy On Assembly, Installation

Crate and Barrel is partnering with home services platform Handy to offer furniture assembly and home decor installation throughout the United States.

A Handy spokesperson confirmed to Reuters that the service will be available at 90 Crate and Barrel stores. Customers can arrange for a Handy worker to come to their home between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m., any day of the week, to complete assembly and installation. Customers can only book the service while at the store, and Handy installation is not available for products purchased on the Crate and Barrel website at this time.

The spokesperson added that prices for the handyman services will range from $59 to $199.

Handy also offers services such as furniture assembly and television mounting through partnerships with Walmart, Wayfair and eBay.

In addition, IKEA acquired TaskRabbit, a rival of Handy, in September 2017. The deal was the first acquisition of its kind by the Swedish company in the United States, which is the company’s second biggest market behind Germany. The U.S. home furnishings market is worth about $282 billion, and IKEA’s share is 2 percent, down from 2.2 percent in 2014 and far behind its share in Germany, which is at 12 percent.

The TaskRabbit acquisition has been successful so far. Tasks by the company have more than doubled, and 10 percent of all services provided were furniture assemblies.

Jesper Brodin, chief executive of INGKA Group, which owns most IKEA stores, said TaskRabbit was going to expand into areas like interior design and furniture repair, and that the company could use TaskRabbit’s data to develop new furniture ideas.

“As this community grows, it’s not only about fixing one or two things but actually to add professionalism in interior decoration, into ‘life at home’ practicalities,” Brodin said. “TaskRabbit is a super interesting business case because it is scalable, not only geographically but also into services at home.”