Amazon named ‘most reputable UK retailer’ in consumer survey
Amazon, Boots and John Lewis have topped the 2018 UK Retail RepTrak ranking of the most reputable retailers, the Reputation Institute has announced.
The research was based on 5,175 individual ratings from the UK general public and based on an assessment of 50 nominated companies.
Amazon’s reputation significantly improved since last year, boasting an +8.3 points increase. The UK public voted the online giant as the top retailer across Products and Service, Innovation, Leadership, and Performance.
Sports Direct was named as the ‘least reputable’ UK retailer in the survey, with its RepTrak pulse score falling to 48.4 in 2018 from 53 in 2016. The sports retailer performed worst on four measures in the report: Workplace, Governance, Citizenship and Leadership.
Stephen Hahn-Griffiths, chief reputation officer at Reputation Institute, said: “Amazon’s combination of selection, value, personalisation, and no hassle customer service is a winning formula. Amazon has a loyal following with more than 100 million Amazon Prime subscribers ‘Prime Day’ sales have become a major retail event.
“Despite their position of strength, Amazon is faced with reputation risk based on the proposed “Amazon tax” and growing criticism of working conditions in their vast distribution centres.”
He added: “Sports Direct’s overall reputation has tumbled in the past year, alongside its profits. The company recently suffered a huge backlash from investigative journalists who compared working conditions to ‘the gulag’ and the firm was investigated by MPs shortly afterwards.”
Biggest winners
The top 10 companies in the 2018 UK Retail RepTrak which are considered to have an excellent or strong reputation are:
- Amazon
- Boots
- John Lewis
- Co-op
- Ikea
- Debenhams
- Sotheby’s
- Waitrose
- Tiffany and Co
- eBay
