Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) once held the top spot among all major e-commerce sites in terms of customer satisfaction. The position made sense because of Amazon’s size and the fact that its only presence is online. It has lost its number one position and with it the image that its position against brick-and-mortar stores and niche online retailers is invulnerable.
According to The Answers Experience Index: 2014 U.S. Retail Edition:
This is the 10th year of the study’s history and the first time that Amazon is not alone at the top of the list for e-commerce sites. Amazon slipped to a score of 83 to tie with QVC for the highest score among the top 100 e-commerce sites measured. Amazon’s drop can be partly attributed to scoring much lower on customers’ assessments of Amazon’s price competitiveness.
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It’s a watershed year for U.S. holiday retail, starting with Amazon’s dramatic drop in customer satisfaction.
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Companies that caught Amazon (which had a rating of 83) or nearly did in the ranking were QVC, which tied the leader and Avon Products Inc. (NYSE: AVP), L.L. Bean and Netflix Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX), which scored 82.
The leaders are notably very different from one another in terms of business models. While Amazon is the online superstore, Avon’s target is primarily middle-aged women. The “Avon Lady” has been joined by Avon.com as a means to distribute Avon’s products. Its ranking is an important success for a company the sales of which have faltered overall recently.
L.L. Bean, on another hand, sells outdoor clothing, hunting and fishing gear, and luggage.
QVC’s primary business is to offer items over it cable TV programs, which run 24 hours a day. Once again, online sales are a channel that augments its primary means of distribution.
Finally, Netflix is an online-only business that distributes premium video programming. It also has begun to produce original programming as a means to add customers.
The worst news for Amazon is that the companies that have come to match it are diverse, which shows its competition in not from a single industry.
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Methodology: The Answers Experience Index (AXI): 2014 U.S. Retail Edition is a study of multichannel retail touch points based on 40,000 consumer surveys gathered for the top 100 retail websites, top 30 retail chain stores and top 30 mobile experiences over the course of this past holiday shopping season.
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