While Amazon and Netflix increasingly win over web consumers, in 2010, overall e-commerce satisfaction sank to its lowest point since 2004. That’s according to the latest figures from ForeSee Results’ annual e-commerce report on American Customer Satisfaction Index, which point to some of the challenges online commerce companies face in keeping customers happy, especially in a tough economic periods.
ForeSee said e-commerce satisfaction is down 2.6 points to 79.3 compared to last year. The results were dragged down by online retail, which saw its satisfaction ranking drop 3.6 points to 80 compared to the year before. To be sure, these are still good results and are higher than traditional brick-and-mortar retail, which has trailed online retail survey results since 2000. But the gap is narrowing, with physical retail scores dropping 1 point to 75. The drop in e-tail scores was led by smaller retailers, which appear to have been unable to keep up with companies like Amazon, which have been able to cut prices aggressively and offer free shipping. The “all other” category of online retailers fell 6 points to 78. Meanwhile, Amazon jumped back into first place among retailers, ahead of Netflix and a slumping Newegg, while Overstock and eBay rounded out the top five.
Online travel enjoyed a 1.3 point bump in satisfaction, hitting an all-time high of 78. , The sector continued to soar, reversing a previous four-year decline from 2005 to 2008. Online travel could be affected by more airlines refusing to work travel sites. American Airlines, for example, recently pulled its flight information from Orbitz and Expedia (s expe). Meanwhile, online brokerage remained stable at 78 points.
For the first time, ForeSee surveyed mobile commerce satisfaction, and while the scores for retail and travel (75 each) were in line with a recent survey of mobile shopping by ForeSee during the holiday period, online brokerage services used on the go came in at 81 percent. The results suggest online brokerage users were more satisfied with the mobile interfaces of popular services because they addressed the real-time nature of stock prices, but the results point to the need for all retailers to consider how to improve their mobile products to make them usable and relevant for consumers, especially as users turn to mobiles for more transactions.
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