According to a recent survey conducted by the independent and objective New York City-based Luxury Institute, the top-ranked luxury sites are those of Barneys New York, Bergdorf Goodman, Brooks Brothers and Net-A-Porter.

The survey asked wealthy shoppers who earn at least $150,000 a year to weigh in on their most and least favorite luxury retail websites in the 2011 Luxury Online Customer Experience Index survey. The affluent consumers rated the sites based upon 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. Users also indicated how likely they would be to return to the site and to recommend it to family and friends.

Based on 1-100 composite scores, Barneys New York, Bergdorf Goodman, Brooks Brothers and Net-A-Porter topped the list with each earning a score of 81. Nordstrom has the most frequently visited site with a total of 23% of respondents visiting Nordstrom.com in the past 12 months.

Sixteen retail sites were considered for the survey with traditional retailers including: Barneys New York, Bergdorf Goodman, Bloomingdale’s, Brooks Brothers, Lord & Taylor, Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Avenue and online only sites including: Bluefly, eBay Fashion Vault, Gilt Groupe, HauteLook, Ideeli, Net-A-Porter, Rue La La and Shophop.

Net-A-Porter excluded, “key luxury multi-channel retailers significantly outperformed the pure online players, with the flash luxury sites being rated at the bottom tier,” according to Luxury Institute CEO Milton Pedraza.

Source: Reuters