Shopping: Shopping stats - Price tops customer satisfaction survey

for product research, the survey found.

The customer experience study researched the attitudes and behaviour of
more than 500 UK online shoppers. It ranked sites according to
customer/price satisfaction, purchase process, product research
facilities and perceived site performance.

Customers ranked Amazon first, followed by Comet and eBay.

Faring less well were John Lewis, Boots, Dixons and Marks & Spencer,
which were said to offer the worst customer experience.

The survey found UK consumers are primarily looking for price
satisfaction.

Here, Amazon, Argos and eBay came out as the most competitive brands
online, while traditional high-street stores John Lewis, Marks & Spencer
and Boots scored lowest. Secondly, they look for visual appeal. And
here, John Lewis and Marks & Spencer were the top performers, alongside
Amazon. While Argos, Dixons and Comet were in the bottom three.

Bonny Brown, director of research at Keynote, says: "UK consumers are
first and foremost driven by cost. They expect web sites to undercut
high-street store prices, and if they don't they're likely to look
elsewhere. It's unsurprising that Amazon - the company rated as offering
the best online prices - is also ranked as the most customer-savvy site
in the UK."

She added: "The look and feel of a web site is an important factor too,
but consumers are not impressed by style alone. While John Lewis and
Marks & Spencer have developed good-looking web sites, they fall behind
in other areas in our survey, such as pricing, product interest and
search satisfaction."

The survey found UK consumers consider customer support largely
unimportant when it comes to choosing where to shop online. It was the
least important driver for delivering a positive customer experience.
EBay and Amazon scored poorly in this category, but that had little
bearing on overall customer experience scores.