Amazon.com remained the best website for shopping online while JCPenney suffered the largest drop in customer satisfaction of any major online retailer this holiday season, according to a survey released yesterday.
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, CEO 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.
JCPenney’s score fell to 78 from 83.
Other retailers that saw their ForeSee satisfaction scores drop included Apple, 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 Walmart, which is trying to grow its online sales, scored a 78 for its website, down from 79 in 2011. Rival Target’s website scored 79, up from 76 last year, when it had some struggles after taking over control of the site from Amazon.