* Amazon tops ForeSee satisfaction index for 8th straight
year
* JC Penney drops 5 points, more than any other website
* Customer experience key to success – ForeSee CEO
By Jessica Wohl
Dec 27 (Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc remained the best
website for shopping online while JC Penney Co Inc
suffered the largest drop in customer satisfaction of any major
online retailer this holiday season, according to a survey
released on Thursday.
Flash sale sites Gilt.com and RueLaLa.com were among the
worst performers in online shopping satisfaction this season,
according to ForeSee’s Holiday E-Retail Satisfaction Index.
“The importance of satisfying them and giving a great
consumer experience is going to pay back huge dividends in terms
of profitability for these retailers,” said Larry Freed,
president and chief executive officer of ForeSee, which measures
customer satisfaction for companies, including retailers.
Amazon has held the highest score in each of the eight years
of the index, due in part to the wide variety of merchandise it
offers and a site that is easy to use.
“They’ve really done a great job in setting the standard for
everybody else,” Freed said of Amazon.
Amazon’s score was again 88 out of 100, while Gilt.com and
Fingerhut.com shared the lowest score of 72. LLBean.com had the
second-highest ranking, 85, up 4 points from a year earlier.
A score of 80 or higher is considered strong, Freed said.
JC Penney’s score fell to 78 from 83.
“They’ve struggled a lot in their stores as they’ve tried to
reinvent themselves a bit and that’s carried over a little bit
to the website,” Freed said.
Other retailers that saw their ForeSee satisfaction scores
drop included Apple Inc – down to 80 from 83 – and Dell
Inc, which fell to 77 from 80.
At Apple, as the popular tech company has brought out more
products, navigating the site has become more of an issue, said
Freed. Improving the functionality of the site would give it the
biggest boost, he said.
No. 1 U.S. retailer Wal-Mart Stores Inc, which is
trying to grow its online sales, scored a 78 for its Walmart.com
website, down from 79 in 2011. Rival Target Corp’s
website scored 79, up from 76 last year, when it had some
struggles after taking over control of the site from Amazon.
As for those flash sale sites coming in at the low end of
the scores, Freed noted that some are trying to grow beyond the
premise of flash sales, which offer a limited amount of marked
down merchandise at specific times.
“It works for some kinds of consumers, it’s not going to
work for every kind of consumer,” said Freed. “Their models
today are going to work and they’re going to have a chance to be
successful, but at the end of the day it’s not the right answer
for everybody.”
ForeSee’s 2012 report was based on more than 24,000 surveys
collected from visitors to websites of the 100 largest online
retailers from Thanksgiving to Christmas, up from 40 retail
sites in prior years.
