British supermarkets sweep international league tables
An international survey of retailers compiled by strategy consultants OC&C has seen British stores nab half the top 10 placements.
High Street favourites M&S, Boots, Asda and Waitrose along with web based retailer Play.com all placed highly in the league table with shoppers rating them more highly than their international peers in areas such as value, quality and store ambience.
This allowed stores such as top ranked British store M&S, which was ranked badly on prices, to perform well overall. Notable by its absence was Tesco which, despite its market leading position, was the lowest rated of the big four retailers, perhaps symptomatic of the British desire to root for the underdog.
The survey also highlighted discrepancies within various retailing sectors with health & beauty, the top performing sector, rated 5.8% higher than their counterparts in five international markets.
By contrast electrical retailers failed to show much spark, their ratings were 2.5% worse than for comparable stores in Germany, France, US and the Netherlands.
Global internet retailer Amazon swept all before it in the final reckoning however, the Seattle based online store grabbed top honours from British, German and American shoppers.