Welcome to the ‘Now’ economy

CARLI PHILIPS
February 13, 2017
The Australian

You have two hours before the children wake up and Groundhog Day sets in again. When was the last time you went to the salon for a colour and cut? Oh, but what’s that you say? You don’t remember. While it’s the perfect window of time, there’s one problem: the newborn isn’t quite old enough to be left alone.

So if the only thing you’ve been washing is the dishes, then ­Stephan Lattouf is your Saint of Scissors. His Dial a Style app ­connects a network of mobile therapists to clients who can book a range of beauty, massage and hair appointments at the last ­minute (you can wait for the first available or book in advance).

Lattouf says Dial a Style’s peak hours are evenings and school hours, with the main demographic being time-poor business people and stay-at-home mums. “It’s the convenience of having a professional without leaving your home … [customers] are then able to continue with work or home chores while having services done.”

He also operates Barbers on Bikes, offering men’s face shaves, haircuts and facials. “We have a range of men using the services, from grooms to fathers and sons, we also have quite a few housebound clients that use the services in homes, hospitals and nursing homes.”

When there’s a lull in bookings, Barbers on Bikes visit venues like car yards where there’s a high concentration of men.

UberEATS launched in Australia last year and, alongside Foodora and Deliveroo, delivers restaurant food from all different restaurants directly to your door. Major supermarkets have been ­offering home delivery for a while now, and healthy ready-to-eat meal kits are booming. Players like The Fix make cleansing easier by delivering cold-pressed juice to your door and if you can’t bear the thought of cooking, Eat Fit Food drops off meal packs.

While consumables are largely covered, there is now a slew of non-­traditional specialty services bring­ing people to your porch. Think Doctor on Duty, Geeks2U, Teeth on Wheels, MobileNail and Briggins, the travelling tailor.

Knock, knock. Who’s there? Everyone, apparently.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development data from 2014 shows Australia is below ­average in work-life balance compared with other OECD countries. Australian Bureau of Statistics data supports the suggestion Australians are feeling time-poor, showing that in 2014, 44 per cent of women and 36 per cent of men were always or often rushed or pressed for time. The convenience of hiring last-minute help or door-to-door delivery eases some of the stress from our increasingly fast-paced lives.

In 2010 Silicon Valley entrepreneurs AJ Forsythe and ­Anthony Martin developed iCracked, the largest on-demand repair service for iOS and ­Androids. Its vast network of trained iTechs will come directly to your home or workplace. ­Techies report having met people anywhere from Starbucks to a bar. Nothing like a wine while you wait. In Australia, iDropped It is a smaller operator but guarantee its mobile repair units “contain everything we need to bring your device back to life”.

Animal services are in particularly high demand, with dog ­washers and groovers getting around in self-contained vans and vets making house calls for pooches in need. At mobile vet clinic VetCall ­appointments must be made in ­advance and its website promises benefits like reduction in stress for both pet and owner, minimising mess in your car and reducing ­potentially stressful encounters with other animals at a clinic. Let’s be honest though, it also means you don’t have to get off the couch.

So confused you don’t even know who or what you’re looking for? TaskRabbit operates around the US and, like the Australian based UrbanYou, enables the “domestically challenged” to outsource skilled service providers to assist with same-day household chores. No more trawling through websites (who has time for that?); the single aggregated platform means everything is all in one handy spot. Sydney-based peer-to-peer network Airtasker functions as a marketplace where users make their needs known. Anything goes, and requests often rely on the mobility and time availability of others. Like lining up for preview tickets to the hit musical, The Book of Mormon.

It’s the age of “nowism”, says market research provider Euromonitor, who identified movable businesses as a key contributor to our cultural currency of instant gratification where success is measured by speed. Businesses now market themselves in terms of response times (largely track­able by smartphone GPS), offering compensation discounts if they don’t make it within the estimated time. In the ultimate attempt to ­reduce delivery time, Panama’s Pizza Hut Oven Delivery service features electric ovens on the back of motorbikes so pizza can be cooked on the go. Volvo has even conceptualised “Roam Delivery”, a service allowing car owners to choose their parked vehicle as a delivery drop-off point when ­ordering goods online. Owners are then informed when the delivery company is ready and access is provided via a digital key.

Leading research and consultancy BIA/Kelsey calls it the “Uberfication of local services”. It’s part of the ­increasing shared economy whereby mobile apps enable consumers to “summon services or products in an on-demand fashion, which are fulfilled or delivered offline in their local market”.

Specialty Portable X-Ray was the first to design and offer mobile digital developing units and X-rays that can be sent to a patient’s doctor within half an hour. The founder of the US-based company, Paul Fowler, has said his services are primarily reserved for those with physical limitations or in ­remote locations but now there’s a trend towards those wanting it purely for convenience. “The very wealthy who don’t want to go to the emergency room, they feel like they’re above that, they’ll call us and say, ‘I twisted my ankle, can you come over and take an X-ray of my ankle?’ ” says Dr ­Fow­ler. “I’ve been doing it for 35 years; it’s just gotten bigger and better over the years.”

Now it’s no longer just a package delivered to your porch — it’s a person. No clean clothes and a last minute event? Download the Dryz app, book a pick-up and request a drop off anywhere in their service area. Click click for clean clothes. Don’t want to get a divorce? Call the Flatpack Wizard who will ­assemble your Ikea furniture. Popped a tyre? The Mobile Tyre Shop is “the tyre shop that comes to you”. Don’t want to wait in line at Apple? Call 13Geek for Super Geek, computer repairers that will meet you halfway between desperation and frustration.

What do we want? Everything. When do we want it? Now.