Boots, Marks and Spencer and John Lewis among the high street giants leading the way

Multichannel retailers such as Boots, John Lewis and Marks & Spencer are now snapping at the heels of pure-play online retailers when it comes to customer experience.


This was the latest finding of a seven-year research project by online market research company eDigital Research. It has rated retailers in areas such as first impressions, search, range, shopping basket and order confirmation and purchase, delivery and customer service.


While Play.com and Amazon continue to score highly in many areas of the research, Boots, M&S and John Lewis are all also hitting the mark when it comes to customer experience.


Boots, for instance, came second only to Figleaves for delivery. For telephone customer service, Waitrose, M&S and Next took the top three spots and, for e-mail customer service, Sainsbury’s and John Lewis were beaten only by Amazon.


Four sites landed joint top position when shoppers were asked whether they would shop there again: Amazon, Boots, John Lewis and Play.com. These were jointly followed by M&S and Sainsbury’s.


The research company uses online mystery shoppers, who provide qualitative and quantitative feedback of their experience of buying from selected web sites from the point when they arrive at the home page right through to delivery of items and after-sales customer service.