Julia K.

Love the goods for sale. Hope quality is adequate. A little hard to pick different colors of the same product.

I use Amazon to deliver to our rural home heavy goods like canned pet food before I spend the money on gas to drive to the in-town stores. Love them to ship gifts to my far-away grandchild and her mom and dad.

I'm still happy with the goods I shopped-for from Overstock.com! I found draperies for hard-to-fit window walls. It was important to get insulating coverage on south-facing window walls that would block cold and heat when needed while appearing to be conventional draping curtains. I was delighted to find the exact items when I was looking for them almost two years later. Their site is set up to let me locate the same goods by going back to my own orders.
We had to contact the supplier and had no trouble talking with them by phone in a very short time - same day or next day.
Their reviews are very useful and the happy buyers and unhappy ones provide good reference points to decide whether a particular item is one that we want.

Apple Stores don't carry Apple refurbished items. So, we'll shop for the computer online, but go to the Apple Store for accessories and in-person support.

We have been hosts with Airbnb for more than 2.5 years. We rely on guests' "verifications" by more than just a phone number ( 1 verification) because we live here and don't want to find ourselves greeting more guests than we agreed to host, or people intending to engage in criminal conduct from the guest room of our home. And we submitted to the, "whole boat" of verification so our guests know they haven't reserved space in the Bates Motel where mummified mom will be in the basement. We didn't have to take a video of ourselves, but the questions were pretty intrusive and they were obviously being validated while we were answering them.
Our reviews are consistently good because we only rent our guest house or our guest rooms with freshly cleaned bed linens and towels, vacuumed carpeting and fully equipped kitchens and bathrooms with clean plumbing fixtures. Again, we live here. So we're not attractive to people whose hunger for privacy is for doing things they're ashamed of or fearful of being arrested for.
I agree that Airbnb seems to be trying to replace formerly one-to-one phone calls to customer support with FAQs and emails ( the endless effort to increase profits, evidently). It's also clear that 'hackers' have tried ( and maybe succeeded) to invade the email communications between hosts and prospective renters. A couple of times there have been really odd inquiries from travelers requiring inappropriate lodgings ( an inconveniently long drive from the locale of their planned activity) or asking coyly if we're "really secluded" ( or asking to negotiate lower rent - although our rates are much lower than all the local hotels and licensed, commercial bed and breakfasts.) Or asking about availability for a long period of time in which they don't state their planned travel time. (query would this be somebody looking to book our space and rent it to 3rd parties at higher prices?) So, we "deny" those requests, we don't make a reservation and then cancel it when somebody more attractive wants those dates. The former is prudent, the latter is greedy.
All that information demanded by Airbnb from hosts about their accommodations and neighborhood and rates needs to be read. People used to choosing which "they-all-look-alike" motels don't want to really compare what's on offer - just the prices.
It's so hard for some people to grasp the major differences between dealing with individual homeowners and booking a bargain-priced "special" room rate at one of the big chain hotels that look like they're always clean, because the in-house cleaners are expert at making it look like the fixtures have been cleaned and the bed linens have been changed whether or not that's actually true.
I'd like it if Airbnb would create another category for the "multi-unit" property managers in the bigger municipalities. If people are having bad experiences with them I prefer that their dubious business practices through Airbnb not be the reason that the Airbnb guests we want to accommodate are not being discouraged. The rest of us scrub our sinks and bathtubs and launder the sheets and expect to be treated respectfully by travelers as we strive to accommodate them.
I'm annoyed by the young couple who reserve one of our two guest rooms, "text message" that they can't check in before the performance they have tickets for and will not arrive until after 11:00 p.m., and then texts at 11:30p.m. That "something has come up" and they'll not arrive after all but will return to their big city home that night. Wait for it... then they want a refund because they cancelled long after the announced deadline to cancel.
That's one reason hotels cost so much more. They have to refund the last minute cancellation. Airbnb rates are lower because, in part, last minute cancellations don't get refunded.
We love Airbnb, but I hope they improve "support" access and response, and read these complaints to mean that verification procedures need simplified and improved "how-to" helps.
And in this marketplace, there is no perfect option: certainly not HomeAway and subsidiaries.
In almost five years, the Home Away group has raised their prices to homeowners and pressured us forcefully to give them access to the money collected to hold reservations and to our banking information. They "punish" owners for holding on to the process of making reservations and holding advance payments and security deposits rather than giving that whole financial aspect to Home Away. And this year they're charging a percentage of the rents to renting travelers.
So, our experience as hosts has been, we're fair and square with our guests and with Airbnb and we've been fortunate to have no problems with Airbnb guests. And very few problems with guests from word-of-mouth referral or the VRBO/HomeAway group.

I finally "caught on" that our inquiries were dramatically fewer because I didn't, "check the box" to have HA and tentacles collect our fees. Airbnb has done so for as long as we've been with them ( 2+ years), but their "terms" are much more responsible and they are really responsive. HA's terms are "we have no responsibility to you homeowner..." so I just wouldn't sign up with it. I looked again today, getting ready to re-think it if I could refer to PayPal but they insist on having all our checking account information from which they will have authority to, "debit". Oh Hell No! Thanks to SiteJabber business reviews I'm realizing that we're not alone. We've already lost so much revenue, compared to a couple years ago, that it seems clear that it's time to cut our losses.
In two years and over a hundred renters through Airbnb, only ONE guest referred to the airbnb fees to our guests, and she was clearly unhappy that guests are not anonymous to hosts, any more than hosts are anonymous to guests. Hotels are for anonymity, not renting homes and guest rooms from their owners. No communication is facilitated until rents and fees are paid to Airbnb, which transfers to us hosts the day after check-in.
Airbnb has an insurance policy for renter damages to homes or guest rooms and holds security deposit charged by us hosts for 48 hours to be returned automatically unless we report damage as soon as a guest has departed. Upfront, honorable, fees charged to both sides of the transaction, but no annual fee just to be listed.
Homeway and VRBO have been trying to squeeze higher prices out of us just for the listing for the past couple years. No More! Time to get out of their web now.