Newegg Cracks 1st Place In Customer Satisfaction Study
By Alan Wolf -- TWICE, 6/15/2009
ANN ARBOR, MICH. — Newegg.com bested 10 other leading consumer electronics e-tailers in a recent study of customer satisfaction and future purchase intentions.
According to the spring 2009 edition of the Top 100 Online Retail Satisfaction Index, produced by ForeSee Results in partnership with FGI Research, Newegg rose 1 point from last year on the 100-point American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), to a score of 81.
“A score of 80 is considered excellent,” said ForeSee president/CEO Larry Freed, “so Newegg.com should be proud of their accomplishment, especially during a recession.”
TigerDirect.com, a division of Systemax, also improved its score 1 point, to 79. The only other site improvement was PCMall.com, which also rose 1 point, albeit to 68, a fairly low score.
By comparison, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Web site has a satisfaction score of 73. Five of the 11 CE e-tailers in the study — all chosen for their category-leading sales volumes — scored lower than the IRS, “which doesn't seem sustainable in a competitive retail environment,” Freed observed.
Among the five was SonyStyle.com, which decreased by 4.1 percent, and Etronics.com, which suffered an 11.3 percent plunge.
Edging out the IRS was BestBuy.com, which remained flat at 74, and Apple.com, which fell 6.3 percent to a satisfaction score of 75, putting it behind Dell and Hewlett-Packard. The study indicated that site functionality is the largest driver of Web site satisfaction for Apple, Freed said.
Not surprisingly, satisfaction leaders Newegg and TigerDirect also had the highest purchase intent, which measures the likelihood of site visitors to buy there or through a company's other distribution channels in the future.
As a whole, the CE sites had a middling satisfaction score compared to other online retail categories. To boost results, Freed suggested lowering prices and/or improving their price perception; providing a better merchandise selection; and offering product reviews, mobile applications and free shipping.
“Companies that do improve [their satisfaction level] could increase revenue, loyalty and consumer recommendations, even during a recession,” Freed said.
CE Web Site Satisfaction
| E-tailer | Score* | % Change Y-O-Y |
| *Based on a 100-point scale Source: ForeSee Results/FGI Research © TWICE 2009 |
||
| Newegg.com | 81 | 1.3% |
| TigerDirect.com | 79 | 1.3% |
| HPShopping.com | 78 | -1.3% |
| Dell.com | 76 | -1.3% |
| Apple.com | 75 | -6.3% |
| BestBuy.com | 74 | 0.0% |
| SonyStyle.com | 71 | -4.1% |
| CDW.com | 70 | -2.8% |
| PCMall.com | 68 | 1.5% |
| PCConnection.com | 67 | 0.0% |
| Etronics.com | 63 | -11.3% |
