Walmart to Offer Angi’s Installation and Services at Stores and Online

In a bid to boost customer service and satisfaction, Walmart and home maintenance platform Angi announced a new partnership Monday (Jan. 31) that will see Angi offering its in-home project services through the retailer’s website, app and nearly 4,000 Walmart stores in all 50 states.

In total, the new pact will offer Walmart customers the ability to buy over 150 common projects when they check out, including flooring, painting, plumbing, electrical, TV installation, furniture assembly and more, the announcement said, and marks the next phase of the so-called “nesting trend” which has seen a surge in the amount of time people are spending at home.

“I think, more and more, customers want more than just the box, they want more than the product and they want the product integrated into their lives,” Angi CEO Oisin Hanrahan said in an interview with PYMNTS, noting the “powerful combination” that arises from pairing Walmart’s ability to sell products with Angi’s track record of fielding over 30 million home service requests per year.

“I think that’s why you’re seeing more and more retailers lean into partnerships to deliver a more complete solution to the homeowner,” he added.  “We’re really excited to build connectivity between Walmart’s customers and Angi,” with the rollout slated to begin in the next few weeks.

The Rollout

While this pact is unique and large in scale, Hanrahan said this latest innovation is also true to the company’s core mission of “helping people get stuff done in their homes.” The economics of the deal with Walmart were kept confidential, but Hanrahan said the benefits for consumer and retailer alike are clear.

“What I can tell you is that retailers in general find that when they sell services alongside products, they see that order value and customer satisfaction goes up, and they see that returns go down, and generally customers are just happier,” he said, calling it something that brings real value to the customer relationship.

In fact, the customer sell-through, retention, and repeat business statistics are so strong that some retailers chose to absorb some or all of the cost of particular services or installations Hanrahan said, adding that different retailers approach it differently.

For its part, Darryl Spinks, senior director of retail services at Walmart, said Angi’s experience, along with its stable of 250,000 “Pros” who do the work, would help Walmart customers get jobs done.

“We’re thrilled to bring the convenience and ease of Angi’s services to our customers,” Spinks said in the release.

On Trend

The move comes alongside indicators suggesting that, after two years of adjustment and perfection of the art of remote productivity, the work-from-home shift is not set to end, or even reverse, anytime soon. In keeping with that changing perspective, Hanrahan said consumers’ rationale for taking on renovations and remodeling has also changed.

“Back two or three years ago, the reason why people were investing in their home or in home services was economic; because they thought it was going to increase the value of their home,” he said, adding that that has “changed wildly” today.

Now, he said, people are investing in their home with a “much more utilitarian lens” with the purpose of making it a different place than it was before, whether that involves creating a home office, a pet space or making the home more livable, the most common factor boils down to a rising amount of time spent inside.

“So that’s a pretty significant shift we’ve seen,” he said, where people are no longer thinking about resale value, but rather, are saying they want their home to look and feel different.

“And the driver of that is that people are just spending so much more time at home than before,” he said.