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Amazon.com is America's 'most relevant retailer'

April 5, 2012

Amazon.com is America's most relevant retailer of any kind, according to a study by Brodeur Partners that ranked the Top 10 most relevant retailers.

The study asked more than 2,000 shoppers to look at 21 of the nation's top retailers and decide which were the "most" and "least" personally relevant retailer in four areas: practicality, values, sensory appeal and social appeal, according to a company press release.

"These are four ingredients of relevance that you look for in everything, from a Google search to a product, candidate, cause or place to shop," Brodeur CEO Andy Coville said in the release. "Amazon.com has clearly cracked the code when it comes to being relevant to American shoppers."

Shoppers gave Amazon.com the highest ranking in the area of practical value, which is striking when one considers there's no real-world storefront shoppers can visit. The findings support ample evidence that retail's strongest momentum is now in the online experience.

But offline experience still matters. Target came in second in the relevance ranking largely because shoppers found it the most appealing to the senses, Jerry Johnson, Brodeur's executive vice president of strategic planning, said in the release.

"Clearly there's something shoppers find exciting about Target, its store design, merchandise and messaging. That is reflected in its high sensory ranking," he said. "The case of Amazon.com highlights the incredible power of e-commerce in the retail world of today," Johnson added. "It shows how technology can move a retailer from specialty online bookstore to one that people view as more practical and value-driven than Walmart, the world's largest retailer."

Walmart came in third place. Along with Amazon, shoppers selected Wal-Mart as the retailer that had the highest "practical relevance" among those tested. As noted in an earlier study, practical relevance is the most important attribute a retailer can possess, yet it drops sharply in importance the younger the shopper.

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