My biggest problem is not being able to discern the quality of an item before I purchase. Ratings were last reliable 10 years ago. Different brands used to mean different products, so you used to be able to feature-and-price compare. About the only thing I've figured out to do is to look at pictures to try to group items by manufacturer, purchase one-per-real-manufacturer, then return all of the obvious crap and hope I end up with at least one good item.

Maybe we need a Facebook plugin through which people can (willingly) share their purchases. Don't look at ratings for products from rando strangers, only see the stuff your friends have bought. In the worst case, you're no worse off than the status quo, but maybe I could finally find a decent laptop bag.