Amid a weakening U.S. economy and rising fuel prices, e-commerce looked like a bright spot for retailers in 2007.
In the latest tally of the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), online retail scored 83 on a 100-point scale, outperforming all other tracked industry sectors—and surpassing offline retail (74.2) by almost 9 percent.
The overall e-commerce segment, which includes retail, brokerage, and travel sites, improved 2 percent year over year to 81.6, an all-time high for the category.
The ACSI, compiled quarterly by the University of Michigan and Fore See Results (Ann Arbor, Mich.), tracks customer satisfaction levels among 40 industry segments comprising 200 companies. The fourth-quarter issue focuses on retail, finance & insurance, and e-commerce. In the Q4 2007 report, every company included in the e-tail segment scored in the top 10 of the overall ACSI.
Among online retailers, eBay experienced increased competitive pressure from Amazon, which remained the e-tail segment leader with a score of 88, up from 87 in the prior year. Since 2004, when its ACSI score plummeted to 84, Amazon has been devoting more resources to improving customer experience. In 2007, the company introduced a credit card alternative called "Bill Me Later," allowing high value customers to defer billing while receiving merchandise immediately.
eBay, meanwhile, saw a 1.3-percent gain over 2006, rising to a score of 81, according to the report released by Fore See Results.
"eBay moves up a point, but it has been fairly stagnant over the last few years, failing to come up with the true business innovations that have catapulted Amazon up 5 percent since 2004," the report states.
New to the category was online clearance house Overstock, which competes directly with Amazon and eBay, but has far fewer assets and resources. Overstock debuted at 80, one point below eBay.
Consumer electronics retailer Newegg Inc. also was added to the index, making its ACSI online retail sector debut with a score of 87. DVD rental service Netflix Inc. entered the ACSI with a score of 84.
Learn more at www.theacsi.org.
Auctiva staff writers constantly monitor trends and best practices of those selling on eBay and elsewhere online. They attend relevant training seminars and trade shows and regularly discuss the market with PowerSellers and other market experts.
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