The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) released the latest Retail and Consumer Shipping Report last week. The study, which had over 85,000 consumer surveys, looks at satisfaction i range of retail categories:
- Department and discount stores
- Specialty retailers
- Drug stores
- Supermarkets
- Internet retail
- Gas stations
Costco and Amazon are tied for the highest satisfaction scores. As a category, “internet retail” (digital commerce) beat traditional retail in overall customer satisfaction. This isn’t much of a surprise, seeings how nowadays, people do more of their shopping online.
The survey found “no improvement among the brick-and-mortar categories,” although the observed however that “the customer satisfaction bleeding for traditional retailers has stopped.” To compare, there was year-over-year improvement for digital commerce, reflecting “a much stronger level of customer satisfaction overall.”
The top 10 digital retailers on the ACSI list were the following:
- Amazon (83)
- Etsy (82)
- Nordstrom (82)
- Costco (81)
- HP Store (81)
- Kohl’s (81)
- Newegg (81)
- Nike (81)
- Macy’s (80)
- Wayfair (80)
A majority of the stores on the full list are omnichannel sellers – they both have traditional stores and e-commerce. About a third of the retails were strictly commerce. Not included in the survey was DTC brands.
Two things that e-commerce shoppers enjoy about the digital commerce experience was “ease of checkout and payment process” and “quality of the mobile app.”
Things most liked about traditional department was the “convenience of store hours,” “quality of mobile app” and “reliability of mobile app.”
Regarding the specialty retail category, consumers most liked “convenience of store hours,” “courtesy and helpfulness of staff” and “layout and cleanliness of store.”