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Tuesday, October 5, 2004

Direct Correlation Between Customer Experience Online And Purchasing

According to a new study, conducted by market research firm Vividence, Amazon.com is the clear leader in the online retail market, in terms of the overall customer experience, followed by Barnes & Noble, Circuit City and eBay. Wal-Mart, despite its dominance in offline retail markets, is failing with customers online.

Based on research with 2,000 consumers as they interacted with 20 leading online retailers, key Customer Experience Rankings are:

·  1 Amazon.com

·  2 Barnes & Noble

·  3 Circuit City

·  4 eBay

·  14 Wal-Mart

·  20 Costco

The study found a direct correlation between the customer experience online and conversion and purchase impact rates, as measured by the Vividence Purchase Impact Index. The top-ranked retailers performed significantly better than all other retailers evaluated; and that performance appeared to pay off with consumers more likely to purchase products from the leading sites, return to leading sites again in the future and to recommend those sites to a friend or family member. Safa Rashtchy, senior Internet analyst, Piper Jaffray & Co. said "It should be no surprise that those companies that focus on online retail sales are the ones excelling at it. What is surprising is that many of the world's largest retailers still have not mastered online sales or capitalized on their offline strengths in the online channel. The results of the Vividence study clearly demonstrate the growing importance of the online channel even to traditional retailers."

In general, specialty apparel retailers provided the best online customer experience and had the best conversion rates as compared to all other traditional retail categories. Their success was based on the strong visual appeal of their sites and their investment in product content and the depth of their site functionality.

You can find out more here.

Research Brief for Tuesday, October 5, 2004:
http://www.centerformediaresearch.com/cfmr_brief.cfm?fnl=041005

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