Amazon, Apple, and yes, Victoria’s Secret dominate the mobile shopping satisfaction ratings

Mick Jagger can’t get no satisfaction, but apparently a lot of 14-year-old boys can. So too, fortunately, can Apple, Amazon, QVC, and NewEgg clients.

While Amazon took top honors in customer experience firm ForeSee’s latest mobile shopping satisfaction index and Apple came in second, the big surprise was Victoria’s Secret. The hot lingerie retailer took a top-five position for the first time. (See the full list of the top 25, below.)

[aditude-amp id="flyingcarpet" targeting='{"env":"staging","page_type":"article","post_id":620606,"post_type":"story","post_chan":"none","tags":null,"ai":false,"category":"none","all_categories":"business,enterprise,mobile,","session":"C"}']

So is lingerie shopping on-the-go the new new thing, I asked ForeSee chief executive Larry Freed?

“Either that or there’s a lot of 14-year-old boys on mobile devices,” he joked. “Actually, though, we see a lot of people in-store taking pictures and sending them to a friend for an opinion, or checking size and color availability.”

Amazon also leads in online retail satisfaction, and perennially does well. Apple put in a strong showing after sliding in last quarter’s online retail numbers, and home shopping giant QVC, electronics retailer NewEgg, and — of course — Victoria’s Secret rounded out the top five.

The secret of Amazon’s success, it turns out, is fairly simple.

“Both in the web and mobile they do a great job of being focused on the customer,” Freed says. “They offer great selection with competitive — not the best, but competitive — prices.”

There’s a lesson in that for other m-commerce retailers. While overall customer satisfaction with mobile stores is getting better, retailers who want to improve their stores need to focus on four key areas: price, merchandise, functionality, and content. Price needs to be reasonable, sure, but scope of merchandise available is also an opportunity to delight customers, as too many retailers present too few of their product selection on their mobile sites. Functionality and features of your mobile store also matter (more is better, as long as usability is maintained), and accessibility to content about the products is also critically important.

[Editor’s Note: Mobile commerce, and how to be more successful at it, is one of the themes of our upcoming Mobile Summit in Sausalio. Find out more here.]

And your mobile site needs to work with and be integrated into all your other channels.

[aditude-amp id="medium1" targeting='{"env":"staging","page_type":"article","post_id":620606,"post_type":"story","post_chan":"none","tags":null,"ai":false,"category":"none","all_categories":"business,enterprise,mobile,","session":"C"}']

“A lot of times customers are starting on the web,” Freed says. “But sometimes it’s the store. It’s worth remembering that today’s consumer is not only multi-channel but also multi-device … moving from a work computer to a home PC to a mobile phone to a tablet … and consumers expect that to be seamless.”

That’s a tough job for retailers, particularly for non-logged-in users. But as fast as mobile commerce is growing — and it does have significant amounts of growing to do — the expectations are rising even quicker, Freed says.

And what about every bricks-and-mortar retail’s favorite bugaboo, showrooming?

“It’s a glass half full, glass half empty syndrome,” says Freed. “Consumers are using a phone to get more information more often while in a store. But the challenge is to embrace showrooming … to offer a great experience in-store and a great experience on mobile so that they can negate the risk and maybe even turn showrooming into a positive.”

[aditude-amp id="medium2" targeting='{"env":"staging","page_type":"article","post_id":620606,"post_type":"story","post_chan":"none","tags":null,"ai":false,"category":"none","all_categories":"business,enterprise,mobile,","session":"C"}']

The top mobile retailers by customer experience, according to ForeSee:

Mobile Experience	Satisfaction
Aggregate for Top 25 Mobile Retailers	78
Amazon.com	85
Apple	83
QVC	83
NewEgg	80
Victoria’s Secret	80
Barnes & Noble	79
Footlocker	79
HSN	79
Costco	78
Hewlett Packard	78
Kohl’s	78
SportsmansGuide.com	78
Best Buy	77
Buy.com	77
J.C. Penney	77
Macy’s	77
One King’s Lane	77
Staples	77
Target	77
Walmart	75
Gilt.com	74
Overstock	74
RueLaLa	74
Sears	74
Shop NBC	73

photo credit: Ed Yourdon via photopin cc