Wealthy Online Shoppers Rank Top Luxury Retailer Websites; Nordstrom Is Most Visited While Barneys, Bergdorf and Brooks Brothers Tie for First Place Along With Net-A-Porter

NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire - Jul 7, 2011) - Wealthy shoppers earning at least $150,000 a year weigh in on their most and least favorite luxury retail websites in the 2011 Luxury Online Customer Experience Index survey conducted by the independent and objective New York City-based Luxury Institute.

Affluent consumers rated sites based on visual appeal, navigability, product selection, use of images and text in helping them better understand product features, security of personal data, ease of purchasing and access to customer service. They also indicated how likely they were to return to the site and to recommend it to family and friends.

Based on 1-100 composite scores, the top-ranked luxury sites are those of Barneys New York, Bergdorf Goodman, Brooks Brothers and Richemont's Net-A-Porter, each earning a score of 81. Nordstrom has the most frequently visited site, with 23% of respondents visiting Nordstrom.com in the past 12 months.

Wealthy shoppers considered a total of 16 retail sites:

Traditional Retailers:

• Barneys New York
• Bergdorf Goodman
• Bloomingdale's
• Brooks Brothers
• Lord & Taylor
• Neiman Marcus
• Nordstrom
• Saks Fifth Avenue

Online Only:

• Bluefly
• eBay Fashion Vault
• Gilt Groupe
• HauteLook
• Ideeli
• Net-A-Porter
• Rue La La
• Shopbop

"Except for Net-A-Porter, key luxury multi-channel retailers significantly outperformed the pure online players, with the flash luxury sites being rated in the bottom tier," says Luxury Institute CEO Milton Pedraza. "Although the pure online players are growing fast, it is becoming a commoditized product space where the only thing that matters will be long-term customer experiences as evidenced by high customer retention scores and increasing average spending. Net-A-Porter proves that it takes far more than content and algorithms to create lasting customer relationships. Online players should borrow a page from the Zappos playbook and create customer-centric cultures that Outbehave the competition. Customer-centricity is the sweet spot of success in the 21^st century."

For greater details about wealthy customer preferences on all criteria for each of the 16 online luxury retailers, please contact Martin Swanson.

About Luxury Institute (www.LuxuryInstitute.com)
The Luxury Institute is the objective and independent global voice of the high net-worth consumer. The Institute conducts extensive and actionable research with wealthy consumers about their behaviors and attitudes on customer experience best practices. In addition, we work closely with top-tier luxury brands to successfully transform their organizational cultures into more profitable customer-centric enterprises. Our Luxury CRM Culture consulting process leverages our fact-based research and enables luxury brands to dramatically Outbehave as well as Outperform their competition. The Luxury Institute also operates LuxuryBoard.com, a membership-based online research portal, and the Luxury CRM Association, a membership organization dedicated to building customer-centric luxury enterprises.