Amazon “Most Trusted” Retailer

Amazon.com Inc. (Seattle) was named “the world's most trusted retailer” by a poll of 30,000 consumers in nine countries.

Consumers were asked to rank nearly 600 retailers on a range of factors such as trust, value for money, service, product, and multi-channel capability.

The announcement was made during the World Retail Congress in Paris this week.

However, the poll made clear that trust is on a slippery slope these days. Amazon retained the top spot despite an overall 4.3 percent drop in its score from last year. Respondents cited criticism of Amazon’s tax affairs and labor disputes, especially in Germany and the U.K.

The report stated that Amazon is not the only retailer to face trust challenges in 2013.  It found Tesco’s reputation had suffered from a horsemeat scandal and, in the U.S., Zappos Zappos was hit by fallout from a security breach resulting in the loss of customer data and Neiman Marcus admitted using real fur in some artificial fur products.

“Trust has historically proven to be the most important factor in driving overall consumer perception of a retailer and has long been a core strength of Amazon’s across multiple markets,” said OC&C Strategy Consultants, which conducted the survey.