Shopzilla Recognizes Best Performing Online Retailers
As Consumers' Fear Of Online Fraud Increases
Leading Shopping Search Site Announces BizRate Research Circle of Excellence Awards for 2007 -
Offering Shoppers a Guide to Shop More Confidently Heading into Holiday Season
LOS ANGELES - September 18, 2007 - Shopzilla today announced its eighth annual BizRate Research Circle of Excellence Platinum winners. The award recognizes the very best online retailers in customer satisfaction, as judged by previous online consumers from those retailers. This year, 73 online retailers received the Circle of Excellence Platinum award, including Crutchfield and Tower Hobbies who have held the title now for a record eight consecutive years.
These awards come at a time when 61% of online shoppers believe online fraud is increasing, with lower quality of product and lack of response from merchants being the primary circumstances that have impacted a consumer's online shopping experience. Not receiving a product at all was considered the worst offense by consumers.
"We are finding that shoppers are placing even more significance on peer rating and reviews than ever before with 67% of victims reading these reviews as a preventative measure," said Helen Malani, Chief Shopping Expert for Shopzilla. "In fact, reading reviews is the #1 piece of advice I give all online shoppers when asked about how to take precautions against online fraud."
The BizRate Research Circle of Excellence Platinum winners are representative of the kinds of merchants' consumers can feel confident shopping with, as they must demonstrate consistently superior customer satisfaction on an annual basis. Identifying these merchants on Shopzilla is also easy to do through the BizRate Smiley Scale™, where an easily identifiable smiley face combined with price information can help online shoppers quickly identify merchants with positive customer feedback and experiences in order to make the comparison shopping experience as effortless as possible.
"The success of ecommerce is, in part, due to the commitment retailers make to online customer satisfaction," said Bill Glass, president of Shopzilla. "The Circle of Excellence winners all deserve to be congratulated for their dedication to pleasing their customers day-in and day-out."
A handful of retailers have been awarded the Circle of Excellence for more than six consecutive years these include seven-time consecutive winners Lenox, QVC and Scentiments.com. These online stores were awarded Circle of Excellence Platinum awards based on above average performance on seven key satisfaction metrics including:
| Industry Average |
(on a 10-point scale) |
| 1. Overall Satisfaction |
8.71 |
| 2. Product Selection |
8.62 |
| 3. Ease of Finding Products |
8.68 |
| 4. Repurchase Intent |
8.79 |
| 5. Product Met Expectations |
8.83 |
| 6. On-time Delivery |
8.85 |
| 7. Customer Support |
8.53 |
Below is a full listing of BizRate Research "Circle of Excellence" Platinum award recipients, listed alphabetically and by category and status:
About BizRate Research's Circle of Excellence Methodology:
To qualify for the award, retailers must participate in the BizRate Research Customer Certified Merchant Program. This program allows online buyers to complete
surveys at the Point-of-Sale and after the delivery of goods in order to accurately measure the online shopping experience and to monitor the store's
post-transaction fulfillment performance. To win, the merchant's survey volume must be in the top five percent of survey volume from September 1, 2007 to August 15,
2008, and the merchant must achieve a performance rating above the Industry average on all seven aforementioned service metrics. BizRate Research's Point-of-Sale
and fulfillment monitoring system is free of charge to merchants.
About Shopzilla, Inc.:
Shopzilla, is the most comprehensive shopping search site on the Web. With an index of more than 30 million products from more than 92,000 stores, Shopzilla
uses ShopRank, a proprietary patent-pending algorithm, to help shoppers instantly find virtually anything on sale from anyone, anywhere on the Web at the best
price. Shopzilla also features powerful comparison tools and BizRate consumer reviews of stores and products, the Web's largest and most trusted consumer
feedback network. Every week Shopzilla prepares millions of shoppers to make smarter, more confident purchases and delivers them directly to the checkout page
of thousands of online merchants. Shopzilla also operates the BizRate consumer feedback network which collects approximately 1 million fresh shopping reviews
per month. Founded in 1996, the Los Angeles-based company also operates sites in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. Shopzilla is owned by The E.W. Scripps
Company (NYSE:SSP - News), a diverse media concern with interests in national television networks, newspaper publishing, broadcast television stations, TV
retailing and licensing and syndication. For more information, visit www.shopzilla.com.
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