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Amazon named UK's most reputable retailer

By Don-Alvin Adegeest

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Retail

Amazon has taken the top spot when it comes to reputation, ranking number one as the most reputable retailer in the UK. The findings come from the 2018 UK Retail RepTrak rankings, which sees department stores John Lewis and Debenhams score very high taking third and fifth place.

Amazon scored well in the categories of products and service, innovation, leadership, and performance, despite criticism of its working conditions in some of its UK warehouses.

Sports Direct scored the lowest

Sports Direct was judged the UK's worst retailer reputation-wise, with widespread condemnation of its treatment of staff. It fell short in the categories of workplace, governance, citizenship and leadership.

The Reputation Institute's rankings were based on ratings from 5,175 consumers and individual assessments of the 50 nominated companies. Amazon managed to improve its performance in the survey compared with last year, growing in reputation by 8.3 points. It was voted top retailer across products and service, innovation, leadership and performance.

Other high scoring retailers in the top ten include jeweller Tiffany & Co and eBay in 9th and 10th place. The retailers with the worst reputation other than Sports Direct were JD and luxury brand Dunhill, both in the bottom three.

Retail outperformed most industry sectors, coming fourth after FMCG (first), automotive (second) and industrial (third). The worst-performing sectors were telecoms and energy.

Stephen Hahn-Griffiths, chief reputation officer at Reputation Institute, said in a statement: “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.”

“Sports Direct’s overall reputation has tumbled in the past year, alongside its profits," Hahn-Griffiths continued. "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.”

While more than 2,000 stores have closed or are at risk of closure so far in 2018, the report shows the rapid change in the retail sector creates opportunities for companies who get the balance of high quality products/services and responsible business right.

Photo credit: Amazon gift cards, source Wikimedia Commons. Article source PR Week

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