Top E-Retailers Named

Online retailers Netflix Inc., QVC Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. do the best job of satisfying visitors to their Web sites, according to a ForeSee Results Top 100 Online Retail Satisfaction Index, released Friday.

Netflix.com and QVC.com led the way with a high satisfaction score of 85, considered superior on the American Customer Satisfaction Index's 100-point scale. Other customer favorites include Amazon.com with a score of 83; Barnes & Noble's Web site, 82; DrsFosterSmith.com, 81; and LLBean.com, Apple.com and TigerDirect.com with 79, according to the survey.

"It's impressive that some retailers' satisfaction scores for browsers are so high," said Larry Freed, president and CEO of ForeSee Results, in a statement. "We expect purchaser satisfaction of the leaders to be high, but high-browser satisfaction scores represent the strong positive contribution of the online shopping experience that has been difficult to quantify though other metrics."

He added that although some of the biggest online retailers received high scores, some smaller niche retailers were also rated highly.

In February, ForeSee Results, a research company in Ann Arbor, Mich., surveyed more than 20,000 people who had recently visited -- but not necessarily made a purchase from -- at least one of the top 100 companies' Web sites. ForeSee used the University of Michigan's American Customer Satisfaction Index to rank the retailers. Foresee surveyed Web sites in the following categories: apparel & accessories, books/CDs/DVDs, computers/electronics, flowers/gifts, food/drug, hardware/home improvement, health/beauty, jewelry, mass merchants, office supplies, specialty retailers, sporting goods and toys/hobbies.

The online retailers that scored lowest on the survey include PCMall.com and PCConnection.com, each with a score of 67, and HomeDepot.com with 69.

"Lower-scoring retailers shouldn't be discouraged, since they have the greatest opportunity to improve the Web site shopping experience, and they are still ranked among the top 100 retailers in terms of online sales," Freed said.

Consumers were least satisfied with Web sites for computers and electronics and those in the apparel and accessories category, Foresee said.

According to the survey, there isn't one type of computer/electronics company that really satisfies its online customers, as shown by the four top-scoring organizations. Visitors to Apple.com and TigerDirect.com, both with scores of 79 out of 100, are most satisfied with those retailers overall and most committed to those brands.