Services That Deliver the Goods : Home: Pizza, of course, but also videos, clothes, gourmet dinners, massages, dog grooming and car detailing come knocking.
Some call it the hassle factor--all those little errands you run in between the more important errands you run while racing to and from the office on your lunch break.
In a perfect world, you tell yourself, all products and services would come directly to your door.
The (almost) perfect world has arrived. Sit back, dial the phone and wait for the delivery--to your home or office. Besides pizza and perfume, a host of new products and services can come to your door. Among them are videos, clothing, gourmet dinners and such services as office massage, dog grooming, car detailing and interior decorating.
“There’s something terribly inefficient about picking things up week after week,” said Century City psychologist and attorney Rex J. Beaber. “This is a trend that occurs in areas where driving has been made intolerable and in areas where every adult in a family is working. Time becomes the premium.
“A trend like this is wealth-dependent. You see it mostly with people who have little discretionary time, but lots of discretionary income.”
Consumers spent billions of dollars buying goods and services from a vast array of home-delivery franchise businesses last year, said John Reynolds, marketing director for the International Franchise Assn. in Washington. “A major element for any franchise is the convenience factor, and home delivery is very convenient.”
Entrepreneur magazine recently ranked Decorating Den, which brings home decorating products to customers’ homes, as the 17th fastest-growing franchise in the United States. Californian Steve Bursten formed the company 20 years ago after he observed people scouring stores in search of the right floor coverings, carpeting, draperies and upholstered furniture.
Today, 1,000 franchisees tool around neighborhoods in “color vans” stocked with 5,000 samples of fabrics, carpets and wallpapers to cover any home-decorating need. “People no longer have to run back and forth to showrooms,” said Jean Poole, 46, who travels to about 30 client homes each month from her base in Woodland Hills. “Most people would like help when decorating their home, but they’re too intimidated to call a designer.”
Poole purchases all home furnishings (including furniture, plants, picture frames, vases and lamps) from 25 national suppliers. Delivery and installation fees are included in Decorating Den’s prices.
After hiring a designer to dress your home, perhaps it is time you found someone to dress yourself--if you’re a man. The Best Dressed Co. will not only purchase and deliver men’s clothes, but will color-coordinate them right down to a client’s boxer shorts.
“Most men hate to shop, and they just don’t have the time,” said Alex Rodriguez, 30, who began his business three years ago in Encino. Fees range from $500 for analysis and clothing coordination to $5,000 for packages that include personal shopping and home tailoring. In all cases, one of Rodriguez’s three staff members will analyze a client’s closet, assigning numbers to each item of clothing. Each garment is then matched according to color and listed in a portfolio.
“He can pull out suit No. 1, look at his portfolio and see that it goes with shirts numbered six, seven and eight and ties numbered 10, 13 and 15,” said Rodriguez, who has a client list of about 850. “When he buys something new or gets a gift, a consultant goes back and enters it into our computer.”
Mike Glickman, 30, whose real estate company filed for bankruptcy liquidation this week, has an appointment tomorrow with the service, which he first hired two years ago because “it eliminates something I’ve always despised”--the hassle of buying clothes. “They know exactly what I like,” Glickman said last month. “They attend clothing sales for me and will even send out a tailor to my home. And they tie ties better than I do.”
An analyst visits Glickman’s Malibu home each week to lay out business suits and evening wear--two outfits for each day, including belts, shoes, handkerchiefs and ties.
Videos, as well as clothes, are now telephone-close, with mobile video vans delivering thousands of titles to homes and offices. Movie Express, based in Fox Hills, operates five vans (each stocked with 2,000 titles), with two of the vans covering the San Fernando Valley. For an annual membership fee of $5, customers receive a quarterly catalogue and pay $3.50 for each video that is delivered and picked up. Popcorn and pizza also are available.
“We have corporate accounts too, because for some, it’s more convenient to pick up their videos at the office,” said Michael Collins, 22, chief of operations for the 2-year-old business, which delivers about 600 videos a day.
Other entrepreneurs have begun cracking the office-delivery market. Lorna Rosenstein, a licensed masseuse, totes her specially designed massage chair to weary, desk-bound Valley executives each weekday.
“At the end of the day, workers aren’t likely to take the time to go to a massage therapist who may charge $60 an hour,” said Rosenstein, 34, who also is office manager at Encino Chiropractic.
The standard fee for the six or seven Los Angeles massage therapists who make office visits is $10 for 10 minutes, said Rosenstein, who sees about 10 clients a week.
Most major printing companies will now deliver their goods, usually for minimum orders of $10 to $50. Miracle Printing & Stationers in Van Nuys has about 100 customers each week who request delivery. “With regular customers, there is no delivery charge,” said manager Ron Miulli, 39. “Once in a while, we’ll go to a person’s home.”
Mobile dog-groomers are not a recent invention--Vivian Jamieson says she has been grooming dogs at customers’ homes for 22 years. Her company’s five vans are dispatched from her Canoga Park grooming school each day, servicing about 175 dogs a week. The dogs are groomed in the vans, which are equipped with electricity and hot water.
“It’s for people who don’t have the time to run their dogs back and forth to shops, or who don’t want them exposed to other dogs in shops where they’re sometimes left for hours,” said Jamieson, 63, who charges from $24 to $90 for services that include clipping, bathing, brushing, flea dips, nail clipping and ear cleaning.
Because dogs get lonely too, several entrepreneurs now offer pet-sitting services. “We have one client in Studio City who has this Vietnamese pig that we look in on,” said Viki Graszler, who tends about 10 pets a week through her Hollywood-based business, Pet Tender. “Her name is Annabelle. We feed her bottles of goat’s milk, carrots, apples, celery and dried pig food. But she probably would eat anything if she had the chance.”
Graszler, who said she also tends an iguana and a snake, has monthly and twice-monthly rates for services that include walking animals and socializing with them.
Veterinarians who make house calls are a rare find--although there are a few. Pet Vet Mobile Hospital will visit residences to vaccinate pets and perform minor surgery.
The Canoga Park-based Pet Vet Animal Hospital has a 23-foot mobile unit that is stocked with medications and has a surgery table, cages and an anesthesia machine. “The hospital charges an extra $15 for home visits,” office manager Sharon Conner said.
Should your car get sick, Auto Emergency makes house calls. “We go to people’s offices a lot too,” said owner Wes Holmes of the Simi Valley-based business he founded seven years ago.
The company operates three vans, each stocked with $200,000 worth of tools. The mechanics can repair basic problems, replacing radiators, carburetors, starters and the like. The 24-hour business charges a $35 service fee plus parts and labor.
Some tuneup and lube shops offer home services. Woodland Hills-based Mobilube uses an extraction process that pumps oil out through a vehicle’s dip-stick tube. The business’s one van services residential and corporate accounts, charging from $29 to $34 for oil and filter changes.
Mobile car-detailing shops also will come to your door. R&R; Mobile Service in Chatsworth charges $90 to $110 for complete detailing, which is comparable to the prices charged by non-mobile detail shops.
Owner Edward Rosenberg, 23, who formed his company four years ago, said he services about 25 cars each week, using three vans. “With shops, sometimes people have to drop off their car for a whole day to be detailed. It’s a hassle to have someone pick you up.” Home detailing takes about an hour, he said.
Pizza remains the premier home-delivered food, although a few dining services began taking restaurant food to customers’ doors about four years ago. At least five such meals-on-wheels services now operate in the Valley. The newest among them is To Go Taxi, formed late last year by Alan Carpenter, 29, a former pizzeria manager.
Carpenter has assembled his own menu, consisting of selected items from the four Woodland Hills restaurants he uses. A dispatcher takes orders, and three drivers pick up and deliver the meals in thermal carrier bags. Carpenter, who has about 125 customers a week, said he tacks a delivery fee of 15% on each order to cover the cost of his service.
Gourmands willing to spend a minimum of $300 can have just about anything they want spread across their home dining room tables. Pamper and Dine, a Studio City-based business started a year ago by Amy Tunick and Matthew Sarver, has served about 200 gourmet meals in customers’ homes.
Tunick, 31, launches the evening with soothing music and a half-hour Swedish massage. Meanwhile Sarver, 32, who once worked as a chef at David Murdock’s Regency Club, finishes the preparation of a gourmet meal according to the client’s specifications.
