This was the category which started it all. An Australian technology distributor (who sells products to shops) told us straight, ‘you couldn’t trust online retailers’. Last year’s survey proved you can, but once again, the standard in service varied wildly.
No other category saw such a large number of competitors. In the end, 32 companies received the requisite 100 votes out of a total 21,233 votes cast. And it was PlusCorp, one of last year’s joint winners, which finished top. However, the company was very nearly disqualified as it went into administration just as voting closed. But, at the time of going to press it had just been sold, was about to reopen and, most importantly, still had head honcho, Nigel Fernandes pulling strings.
But the standard at the top was high and we have given three Highly Recommended awards this year. PC Maniacs won Highly Commended last year and is now joined by EYO and Umart.net.au (not to be confused with Umart).
First we asked about Customer Service. On average 83% of all buyers were at least satisfied with what was on offer and only 8% were dissatisfied. PlusCorp was best with 94% of buyers being at least satisfied and a very high 73% said they were Very Satisfied. AusPCMarket, EYO, Mega PC, PC Case Gear, PC Maniacs and Secret all had over 90% of customers saying they were satisfied too.
However, elsewhere things got grim. Price slashers GameDude satisfied a very poor 53% of customers and a third were downright dissatisfied. Minidigital was also way below the curve with only 63% of customers being satisfied. MSY and Nintek also slipped below 70% customer satisfaction.
Next we asked about Delivery Accuracy & Punctuality and 81% of all buyers were at least satisfied. PlusCorp once again came top with a 94% satisfaction level. AusPCMarket, EYO and PC Case Gear all scored over 90% again too. But GameDude once again picked up the wooden spoon with only 49% of customers saying they were satisfied. Again, one third of its customers said they were dissatisfied. Also, only 62% of Minidigital’s customers were happy here as were only 61% of Nintek’s.
The third and final question simply rated Value For Money. Here we saw that there’s no such thing as a free lunch as PlusCorp dropped points. However, 90% of customers were still satisfied. Bargain specialists MSY scored top here with 95% being satisified (77% were Very Satisfied). PC Maniacs, Secret and Umart.net.au also broke the 90% satisfaction barrier.
But the overall average Value For Money rating saw a noticeably-lower 82% being satisfied – several poor performances dragged the scores down. The worst offender was big name Harris Technology (HT) closely followed by Dick Smith (DS). Only 55% of HT customers and 58% of DS thought they were getting good value. 20% of HT customers (and 17% of DS customers) were actually dissatisfied.
This goes to show the problem that major retailers have in moving their business online. The nature of online retail is to cut out shop frontage and staffing costs and pass the savings on to the customers. But major retailers can’t undercut themselves online and have to rely on brand power to attract customers to their online store. This is what Harvey Norman has said it will be doing in the future. Also notable was GameDude, which people expect to offer great value at the expense of customer service (like MSY), but with only 75% of its customers claiming Value satisfaction it picks up the wooden spoon in this category.
