Westport, CT, October 10, 2000 — The e-business initiatives of brick and mortar retailers like Sears, Target, JCPenney, Kmart (Bluelight) and Wal-Mart are far less successful in generating customer loyalty on the Web than "virtual" e-tailers like Amazon.com and QVC.com, according to newly released Dialscore data by Internet consulting firm Digital Idea utilizing the proprietary 1.8 million Internet-user panel of their strategic partner Greenfield Online, Inc.

Dialscore provides a standardized customer loyalty metric that enables e-businesses to benchmark themselves against their competitors. The new data, based on the Internet- user experience of more than 16,000 online consumers, covers 215 e-businesses in 16 industry categories. It builds on the first Dialscore study, which was published in June 2000.

Dialscore information, including analysis from Digital Idea, is provided quarterly to e-businesses and marketers on a subscription basis or as a single quarterly report. Wave 2 introduces a family of Dialscore products with several pricing options ranging from $3,000 for a hard-copy, single category summary report or single site scorecard to $50,000 for an annual full-service subscription with Web-based access to a full category of data. "Dialscore is incredibly valuable to all e-businesses — even those not currently covered by our study," explains Peter Mackey, president of Digital Idea. "Our data and analysis open a window for all businesses to see what the leaders on the Web are doing right, thereby enhancing their understanding of the online marketplace and the steps they need to take to achieve their own success."

In the general retail merchandise category, Amazon.com, with a 34% Dialscore rating, and QVC.com, with a 24% Dialscore rating, are meeting consumer expectations in ways that drive more customer loyalty, according to Mackey. Amazon.com earns high marks for such key criteria as "can be personalized", "entertaining", "enough products/services" and "well organized." Conversely, Sears (5%), Target (9%), Kmart/Bluelight (9%), JCPenney (10%) and Wal-Mart (14%) all inspire much lower loyalty among online consumers. "These companies, who have very successful offline reputations, are not yet effectively delivering on the drivers of a positive online experience," notes Mackey.

In the clothing/shoes category, Dialscore data uncovered a similar, but slightly different phenomenon. The e-business offerings of brick and mortar retailers like The Gap (16% customer loyalty), Nordstrom (15%) and Old Navy (15%) lag the online businesses of catalog-oriented retailers such as Victoria’s Secret (22 %), Chadwick’s (21%), Lands’ End (21%) and L.L.Bean (21%).

"The catalog retailers have more successfully transitioned their knowledge of customer relationship management to their Web businesses," said Mackey. "Brick and mortar establishments, however, are still struggling with core loyalty drivers like ‘offering enough products and services,’ ‘finding what I’m looking for’ and offering the ‘ability to discuss/message a shopping assistant online.’"

The Web site generating the highest loyalty across all 16 categories measured by Dialscore in Wave 2 was NASCAR.com, with a 47 percent rating. It was closely followed by eBay.com (44%), BabyCenter.com (39%) and Edmunds.com (35%).

1. NASCAR.com	47%	7. VW.com	31%
2. eBay.com	44%	7. ZDNet.com	31%
3. BabyCenter.com	39%	7. MapQuest.com	31%
4. Edmunds.com	35%	8. ESPN.com	30%
5. Kbb.com	34%	8. NHL.com	30%
5. Amazon.com	34%	9. Apple.com	28%
6. HGTV.com	33%	10. Chrysler.com	27%

"Our second Dialscore study greatly expands our insights about what online consumers really want," said Mackey. "The most successful categories and sites on the Web are directly satisfying consumer appetite for timely, personally relevant, navigable information. NASCAR.com is a superb example of a clean, clear, easy-to-navigate site that gives the passionate auto racing fan instant access to the exact information he or she wants."

Despite low loyalty ratings across many Dialscore-measured Internet categories, there were numerous individual "high-flyers." For example, Vanguard.com (24%) topped the Financial Services category for the second time in a row; SmarterKids.com (22%) led the Toys category; and Crutchfield.com (19%) headed up the Home Electronics category.

Several sites considerably improved their ratings between the Wave 1 and Wave 2 Dialscore releases. Among Health Information sites, for example, drkoop.com increased its Dialscore Rating from 11 to 17. Among Search Sites/Portals, Google jumped from 16 percent loyalty to 24 percent, supplanting Yahoo! (23%) as the category leader. (Yahoo! entered into an agreement with Google in June, making Google Yahoo!’s default search results provider). And among Financial Information sites, CNBC jumped from one of the lowest Dialscore ratings to a 15. As Mackey explains, "Through the data revealed in Dialscore, we are able to trace increases or decreases in performance directly to changes that a site makes to its user experience. CNBC went through a major site redesign during the period between Waves 1 and 2, adding features that were important to its customers. The changes they made are clearly adding positively to the end-user experience and as a result, customer loyalty."

Digital Idea headquartered in Westport, CT, is an Internet consulting firm that helps its clients build and/or optimize their interactive products, presence and strategies through a family of rigorously designed research-oriented products and services that provide insight into online customer health.