This month’s survey brought, in a late surge, the triple joys of our highest level of voting,  a swathe of new companies in the Top 15 and a continuation of the ding-dong battle between the David (MyDeco) and Goliath (Amazon) that has been keeping us all on the edge of our seats…

Internet Retailing’s Inspiration Index

We asked, along with our research partners, eDigital Research, for you to be so kind as to kind enough to share with us those retailers who’re bringing tears (of envy as much as delight) to your professional eyes.

The dimensions of inspiration are:
1.    Moments of brilliance and delight (March issue – Amazon led the field)
2.    Customer experience (May issue – MyDeco took the laurels)
3.    Operations and IT (this issue).

We still have Merchandising, Marketing and Strategy to come.

“Operations and IT”

We thought that this dimension would be a simple and straightforward one, following the more ‘experiental’ first dimensions. We expected that ‘big ironmongery’ would win through, with a collective ‘oooh’ for large-scale plugs and pipes.

We were right. But we were also wrong.

There were two interpretations you placed on this dimension:
1.   The underlying technology and operational infrastructure that allows millions of orders to millions of customers, and
2.    Cunning ‘front-end’ technology, and the use of IT to make the previously-impossible available online.

We hadn’t anticipated this interpretation, but your comments made your intentions clear – and we are happy to hear your views.

This means that we have the supermarkets and major players scoring highly (with Amazon, Ocado, John Lewis and Argos showing very well, and new entries from Tesco, M&S, Figleaves and EasyJet – complex and extensive product sets, offered impressively as a result of their IT and operational capabilities).

We also have MyDeco showing very highly indeed, with voters appreciating the capability of their rendering, 3D and room-set IT capabilities and software development. We’re pleased to see increased diversity outside the top 5 and new entrants.

Table 1: The ‘top 15’ for Dimension Three

The results of this survey, along with the position from May are shown in the adjacent table.

The Top 5 have maintained their standing, although Apple has dropped to 10th.  The margin between Amazon and MyDeco was barely measurable and  lead position swapped regularly during the voting. Argos’ showing is well-deserved given their pioneering achievements in reservation online and collection in-store, as well as dealing with such an extensive stock range. Ocado’s position at 7 is also to be commended – especially since they only achieved a place on our initial 50 last month.

We’re pleased to see this level of volatility in the index since it bears out our view that (with the few exceptions of the ‘power etailers’ who excel at most things) there’s a broad range of retailers to inspire professionals ecommerce.Just outside the ‘cut’ were good performances from House of Fraser and Clarks, beating off  some strong competition in British Airways, Topshop and Ikea. Last month’s outlier, Tesco, made it to 9th this month.

Overall standings

The overall standard are based upon the ‘cumulative inspiration’ rather than being a simple summation of each dimension’s table: as we can see this month “not all first places are equal” and so over time we want to capture the highest amount of inspiration for the greatest number of etailers.

Our standings table therefore sums the ‘total preference’ across all dimensions – the ‘quantum of inspiration’, if you like. After three rounds the results are:

Table 2: The overall standing after the first three dimensions

The Top 6 have maintained and consolidated their positions, while Argos has pushed its way to prominence. Ocado and Net-a-Porter at the two winners, though, breaking into the leader board with solid results in each round.

Eight basis points separate 10th to 15th positions and the gap to the 16th position is a further 3 basis points. This means that we would expect to see further movement after the next Dimension, “Merchandising”.

Amazon

We were not surprised by Amazon’s performance in this category. Amazon for many represents the acme of operational effectiveness. One responder was moved to say “They’re not on the internet, they are the internet”, citing their ‘awe-inspiring’ infrastructure and logistics, as well as their broader contribution to IT services and cloud computing via their S3 and EC2 initiatives.

Operationally, Amazon earned plaudits for their ‘time to order’ countdown and the clear signalling (and background orchestration) of multiple supply chains and the smooth operation of email information, delivery updates and customer service enquiries all warranted detailed comment.

Overall, the comments gave the view that this was “how to do eCommerce” – serious commendation indeed from such a knowledgeable group of people.

MyDeco

Another strong performance from MyDeco on this dimension. The 3D tool gained universal positive comments and a handful of commentators mentioned the development of a ‘community platform’. While we at IR Towers try to avoid the “P” word wherever possible, it’s clear to us that our retail experts see within MyDeco an increasingly coherent and capable ‘platform’ connecting users, suppliers, retailers and products via an inventive and polished interface.

While just ‘pipped’ to first place by Amazon it’ll be interesting to see in the next Dimension, Merchandising, how the new visual and social online merchandising tools square up against Amazon’s pioneering ratings and ‘people who bought…’ approaches, so widely emulated across ecommerce.

John Lewis and ASOS

Continuing strong performances from the second row on the IR Grid.  John Lewis’ advocates this month had “simplicity” as a key theme. They appreciated the restraint and simplicity with which stock information was ‘surfaced’ to the customer: stock level messaging, email when back in stock, and automated updates all earned citations.

Their ‘Buy online and collect in store’ service earned particular praise for its clear signing and customer feedback at every stage. Respondents indicated that John Lewis had the most seamless web and store service, but at IR Towers we were surprised that Halfords and Argos didn’t feature more highly in this regard.

ASOS’s fans this time cited the checkout process and its smooth, informative and robust construction, as well as the range of delivery options across their range.

The new entrants

Argos made a barnstorming entry to the Top 5 this month, on a wave of multichannel admiration: “you can buy anything anyhow and it all just works”, enthused one inspired respondent.

Argos earned plaudits for their user of the mobile channel and the clarity of their display of delivery options and information.

We were so pleased with Argos’ sprint that we have selected them for this issue’s site review, elsewhere in the Magazine, and we’ve unleashed our reviewers upon their site to see if our experts echo the positive vibes in the survey.

Tesco.com have made a very positive appearance in the Index, with much praise for their management of delivery slot options,  allied to good communication by phone and web of delivery status, right to the final few miles. One commentator offered that they have “raised the bar, and the general expectation of consumers, about delivery specificity”.

Notable absences

A good number of retailers ‘broke their duck’ this month since – despite the same retailers featuring at the top end – the votes were more widely distributed.  Currys, Debenhams, Thomson Holidays and Topshop all now have scored, and we look forward to hearing more of them. First Choice, Game and Thomson Holidays remain voteless – can this really be true? They will be removed next month if not a source of inspiration… Asking to be admitted are recommendations like Vente Privee, Yoox, Firebox, ShopStyle and MyWardrobe – these will replace the bottom of the initial list after next month’s vote, so please do keep suggesting other retailers to us.

We were pleased to see votes from our European readers, with Amazon.de and Yoox featuring highly. We’re still keen to hear how to extend our coverage to the inspirational European etailers and would appreciate suggestions to editor@internetretailing.net.

Next

The next survey will be on Merchandising, (vote now!)and we’re very excited to see which aspects of online selling and the arts of presentation, persuasion and upselling are most appreciated by ecommerce professionals, as well of course as the traditional merchandising skills of managing complex stock demands.

Related news

• Inspiration Index – MyDeco takes the top spot in the “Customer Engagement” dimension
• Vote now! Our third Inspiration Index dimension is live for a week…
• Vote Now! Our second Inspiration Index dimension survey is live for a week…
• Voting opens in marketing dimension of Inspiration Index
• Inspiration Index – final voting for the winning company…
• Internet Retailing “Inspiration Index” – Vote now!