The holiday e-retail satisfaction rankings are in

With the nation on edge, you might assume that every Internet retailer worth their salt would have extended red carpet treatment to shoppers during the traditional end-of-year shopping rush.

Wrong assumption.

In fact, more than one-third of the 40 online merchants surveyed in a report on retail satisfaction finished with lower scores than they did during the same period a year ago.

Still, the annual report from Foresee Results found that scores for most of the 40 online retailers it tracks remained the same while one-fourth registered improvements from 2007.

"Holding flat was a pleasant surprise," said Larry Freed, the company's president and CEO. "Obviously, the economic pressures and price concerns were on peoples' minds. But this bodes well after we get past this economic bump in the road and the economy improves."

Amazon and Netflix turned out to be favorites with online shoppers during the holidays, finishing first and second, respectively in the rankings.

Freed noted that higher customer satisfaction ratings often translates into loyalty and purchase intent. Of the 40 websites, who were rated on a 100-point scale, only Amazon and Netflix finished with scores above 80. More than a quarter scored 70 or below, and almost 40 percent saw their satisfaction rankings drop year-over-year.

Beyond the raw numbers, however, no single aspect of customer satisfaction applied across the board as a measure of overall satisfaction. In some cases it was price, in other circumstances the range of merchandise or the functionality of the Web site held sway.

One other takeaway from the report is clear: Despite the strong performance turned in by Amazon and Netflix, the previous gap no longer separates so-called brick-and-mortar outfits, which migrated to the Web, from pure-play Internet retailers.

"Up until a couple of years ago, the pure plays led the way and the multichannel players trailed by significant margins," Freed said. "But they've since closed the gap."

(The following is a partial list of the rankings. You can find the full report on the Foresee Results Web site.)

(Credit: Foresee Results)

[thefilebunch]

Zappos is the finest e-commerce site, hands down. I actually shopped at six of the sites noted.

[wankell]

Is filebunch the Zappos marketing director?

[Rants&Raves]

Are they taking the customers' initial state of mind in consideration ? Retailers may still be offering the same level of service to people who are simply a bit morose. People are wearing dark glasses right now.

[pjhenry1216]

Yea, honestly, I'm surprised at how low some of those scores are. I'm no fan of Apple, but I've never had problems the few times I've ordered a few things from them. And I'm definitely surprised with Newegg because I order from them almost averaging once or more a month. I've never had anything but the best experience with them. I wonder if satisfaction is lower with people who really can't figure out how to use a computer. No matter what the site does, there are some people who will never figure out how to use the site and unfortunately, they're much louder than the people who enjoy the site who normally don't see any reason to speak up.

[dude7895]

I agree with you, pjhenry1216. I don't like apple much but i have not had any problems with orders. I also buy from places like tigerdirect and newegg almost once a week without any problems. I would like to meet some of these people interviewed.

[jhacker]

This holiday season, I used Staples and Wally World online. I was pretty happy with both of them. I found great discounts on shipping, and I received my merchandise quicker than expected. If you can find discounts on shipping and know what you're buying, online is the way to go!!

[humanssssss]

Amazon has poor customer service! I don't know why it is on top of the list. This is a very bias list.

I will never shop at Amazon ever!

[Seaspray0]

Now if they included the model to fill out the stuff from Victoria's Secret, they'd have a 100% satisfaction rating from the guys... but they still get a good rating when they sell it empty.

[mssoot]

Im amazed newegg is only 78% I would have thought 98-100% easy