Rover.com is great for pet sitting, and care.com is great for finding a home care provider.
However both of these sites will have the same problem as Homejoy. I used rover.com to book pet sitting just for the insurance, but after a few positive experiences, I am now booking directly with the pet sitter. Same thing happens on care.com almost all the time.
These sites are more valuable as a craigslist or angie's list competitor: Use them once or twice per year, then don't visit the site again after you've found your provider.
They should focus on making money from listing fees, insurance premiums, and being the strongest market for their respective industries at all times, so that when I go back to the site in 6 months time, I can trust that it will be just as good an experience as it was last time.
I agree completely. I used rover.com once to find a pet sitter and found a great one. I don't need it anymore.
Furthermore, they're doing the typical thing that businesses resort to when they're desperate. They're asking you to review every single damn time you use their service. (I had the same sitter for 30 weeks in a row. Clearly I like her or I'd use someone different. Stop bugging me!)
They also try to steer you towards using their service more when there's no need for it. Every time I book a stay, they want me to look into other pet sitters on their site. Why would I do that? I'm completely happy with the one I found. If I ever need a change because I move or the sitter moves, or we have a falling out, I'll consider looking for a new one. Until then, get out of my face!
And on top of it, they're trying to push services I don't need. I never want someone to come to my house to walk my dog. I don't need strangers coming by my house. And I need an overnight maybe 3 times a year. (And I'll continue to use the day sitter I have as they also do overnights.) It's almost impossible to find a day sitter on rover.com, and they seem to be pushing everything but that.
Their whole model seems like it's living on borrowed time to me.
However both of these sites will have the same problem as Homejoy. I used rover.com to book pet sitting just for the insurance, but after a few positive experiences, I am now booking directly with the pet sitter. Same thing happens on care.com almost all the time.
These sites are more valuable as a craigslist or angie's list competitor: Use them once or twice per year, then don't visit the site again after you've found your provider.
They should focus on making money from listing fees, insurance premiums, and being the strongest market for their respective industries at all times, so that when I go back to the site in 6 months time, I can trust that it will be just as good an experience as it was last time.