Which Online Store Offers The Best Customer Experience?
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The winners of the 2011 Online Retail Industry Awards were announced recently, and we’ve got the list of the most excellent online stores for you right here.
The ORIAs are awarded to Australian and New Zealand online stores, in recognition of their excellence in e-commerce retailing. Outstanding online pure-play (without a physical store), and multi-channel retailers, are selected by a panel of 7 respected judges from the online retail community. The ORIAs are held in association with the annual Online Retailer Conference and E-commerce Expo, and this years award gala presentation was held on Tuesday 27 September.
With the exception of the Industry Recognition Award, online retailers have to submit an entry and pay $50 to be considered for an ORIA award, so you could take the results with a pinch of salt as they don’t cover the entire online industry — over 100 entries this year. Shortlisted submissions are verified however, and all online stores are scrutinised by the judges from a customer perspective, so there is definitely value in these awards for Australian online shoppers, especially when it comes to safe online shopping.
For the second year in a row Appliances Online has received the Best Customer Experience award. In order to win in this category they had to excel in all areas of customer service, site usability, product and content, efficiency of delivery, and marketing. I haven’t purchased anything from Appliances Online myself, but they certainly do have a well designed user-friendly site with good navigation — this could explain why they also won the award for Best Site Optimisation & Design this year too! Phone support for 16 hours a day / 7 days a week, plus the fact that they openly encourage feedback, certainly suggests they take customer service very seriously.
The overall winner of the Online Retailer Of The Year award was Dick Smith this year, they also took out the Best Multichannel Retailer award too. I’ve made a few purchases from the Dick Smith online store, and they certainly do offer a great online shopping experience from browsing to delivery, and everything in between.
The Best Pure-Play Online Retailer this year was SurfStitch — other finalists in the category included Appliances Online and Kogan. To win this award SurfStitch had to demonstrate excellence in service, functionality, merchandising, and customer experience. SurfStitch also won the award for the Best Use Of Technology.
Paul Greenberg, the Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of the DealsDirect Group, won the Industry Recognition Award. This is a special award nominated for free by the public, for the person who has had an exceptional impact on the online retail industry in Australia. According to the DealsDirect Blog Paul is sometimes known as the “grandfather of online retail”, and is a bit of a philanthropist.
Other online store winners this year include StyleTread for Best New Online Retailer, Sportsgirl for Most Innovative Online Retailer, and Big W for Best Online Retail Marketing Initiative.
What do you think about the ORIA awards, do they help shoppers find excellent stores, or is it just a pat on the back for online retailers?
