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  Russ Francis August 4, 2015 at 9:04pm

  Funny enough I was meaning to post about bark as they recently popped up battering my email with leads.  Lots of central London stuff might be of interest to those in that area. Cheapest lead service I have is "my friend said you were good and gave me your number"
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  Anna Walshe August 5, 2015 at 8:39am

  Just been spammed by them over night!  
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  Dan Davies August 5, 2015 at 4:55pm

  I signed up to them a while back and they have just emailed to say they have just gone live and that I need to put in card details so they can send me leads.. I have just a free account atm. Does anyone know how much a single lead is to buy? is it worth it?
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    Geoffrey King > Dan Davies August 7, 2015 at 8:26pm

    Rather depends on the leads, a lead for a £20 one off job or £5000, or fortnightly £50.

    However if your trying to build up a round, you might have to keep paying for something you don't need
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    Geoffrey King > Dan Davies August 9, 2015 at 12:42pm

    I always find myself thinking how do they know?

    They have just started but already they are experts in pricing

    the gardening industry appears to be in the middle of a boom as Brits are now prepared to spend an average of £19 an hour for trusted professionals to help keep their gardens tidy, according to Bark.com.
    
    Bark.com is a fast growing free online service that helps customers find local service professionals. It has received a sharp increase in gardening requests over recent months, showing that Brits would rather enjoy summer activities other than weeding and mowing, and are willing to pay to keep their gardens tidy.
    
    As you might expect customers in the capital pay the most for gardening services with the average quote just over £21 an hour. This is closely followed by the South East at around £19.50 per hour. The East Midlands, North East and South West are all around £17 per hour with customers in the North West and East Anglia getting the best deal with average quotes a shade under £16 an hour.
    
    From hedge trimming to lawn mowing to weeding, Bark.com is leading the way in providing customers with an easy to access and reliable service. The website works by allowing customers to submit a requirement, or ‘Bark’, for a gardening service, which is then submitted to local professionals who receive details of the request and communicate directly with the buyer to get the job done.
    
    With over 12,000 gardeners available through the site and the UK landscaping industry now worth approximately £4bn, customers on the lookout for local gardeners and landscapers will not struggle for options with local professionals available up and down the country for hire.

    It is quite annoying that they refer to the price per hour, how do they know? Many gardeners quote a fixed price.

    If you look at the form  a client submits there is no mention of the hours to be worked.

    It's a mystery

    http://www.insightdiy.co.uk/news/seeds-sown-for-gardening-growth-as...
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  Phil Voice August 5, 2015 at 5:48pm

  @france_normandy @LandscapeJuice We offer free and paid packages - you choose the best fit for your business! #BarkIt

  — Bark.com (@barkteam) August 5, 2015
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  James Brett August 8, 2015 at 6:47am

  I had a load of unsolicited spam emails from them. The unsubscribe links on my emails didn't work. Eventually got them stopped after tweeting them.
  
  On a side note. How much do you reckon they paid Mr Hewer?
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  Geoffrey King August 9, 2015 at 1:12pm

  According to Bark they have 12,403 gardeners signed up, quite a few, wonder if anyone on the LJN uses them?

  https://www.bark.com/en/gb/services/gardeners/

  Scrolling down the page reveals sporadic coverage outside London
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    Gary RK > Geoffrey King August 9, 2015 at 2:16pm

    Are they double counting?

    Many of the 'locations' mentioned further down the order are suburbs of London......?

    
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      Russ Francis > Gary RK August 9, 2015 at 7:35pm

      I suspect the 12,000 gardeners "signed up" are ones like us where they've harvested/bought email addresses, rather than people who have actively opted in and given accurate details.  Building such a big database in one go is quite a big task and probably nearly all automated, maybe location defaults to London.

      Quite a clever startup though, it's got us talking about it.  Not of interest to me as yet, but might take a look in the leaner months.  Guess it's just another route to market, depends on the cost and quality of leads.