Amazon Retains Its Crown Among Online Retailers In This Year’s Holiday Consumer Satisfaction Survey

Online retailers are sitting pretty these days due to the convenience they offer during busy times like the holidays, but according to this year’s survey of consumer satisfaction, some businesses made out better than others. Amazon is the reigning champ of customer satisfaction, and it held onto that title again this year, beating out upstarts like Gilt.com and RueLaLa.com.

According to ForeSee’s Holiday E-Retail Satisfaction Index, Amazon is the champ when it comes to shopping online, while JCPenney suffered the biggest drop this year, notes Reuters.

“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.

Apparently Amazon is doing something right, as it has kept its crown for eight years, partly because it just sells so many things and isn’t a complicated web experience. It scored an 88 out of 100, with LLBean.com coming in second with 85. Meanwhile, the  lowest scores of 72 went to flash sale site Gilt.com and Fingerhut.com.

Anything above 80 is pretty good, said Freed. Which could spell even more trouble for struggling retailer JCPenney, which went from 83 last year to a dismal 78 this time around. It could be due to the problems they’ve had in their physical stores just spilling over into online retail.

Apple also took a dip to 80 from 83, and Dell fell to 77 from 80. Walmart might be king of the big box stores, but in the e-commerce world it didn’t fare so great in this year’s index, going from 79 last year to 78 this year.

The report is based on 24,000 surveys collected from shoppers on 100 of the largest online retailers between Thanksgiving and Christmas. In previous years, only 40 sites were included, which shows just how important online retail is becoming to shoppers.

Amazon most satisfying website to shop-survey [Reuters]

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.