Consumers find more retail satisfaction online than offline

The latest American Consumer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), released today, puts online retailers on 80 points, just over 6 points ahead of national bricks and mortar businesses.

To be released today, the latest index shows Americans gave online retailing a score of 80 on a scale of 100, compared with 74.4 for all retail trade.

One advantage that online retailers have over their offline counterparts is the ability to offer the consumer a plethora of information including price comparisons, detailed product information and images that can be manipulated, all with no time wasted hunting down a sales assistant or waiting in line at a checkout.

"There are many product lines where you can actually get a better browsing experience online than offline," said Larry Freed, president and chief executive of ForeSee Results. "If you're looking for a big-screen TV, 60-inch plasma or whatever, you go to a store, you see it alongside 20 other models, it's the same feed coming in to all, it's really noisy, you can't hear how loud the fan is, you've got an associate that may or may not be very skilled and knowledgeable about it.

Barnesandnoble.com achieved a score of 88 beating Amazon.com, with 87 points, to overall first place. eBay dropped 1 point to 80 but retained its lead of the auction sites.

Tags: Amazon, Barnesandnoble.com, customer satisfaction, eBay, online retailing