Thursday, December 7, 2000

Health PowerRankings - Drugstore.com Still #

Drugstore.com, aided by top scores in customer service and cost, remains No.1 in the latest PowerRankings of online health retailers by Forrester Research, Inc.. Forrester's PowerRankings combines survey data from online consumers and unbiased shopping tests to provide objective rankings of the leading US eCommerce sites. The companies that rank below drugstore.com are PlanetRx.com, VitaminShoppe.com, and WebRx.com.

In a two-horse race, drugstore.com beats back a challenge from PlanetRX.com to win the health category for the second time in a row. drugstore.com's victory was aided by high marks in customer service, cost, and shopper-friendly features, such as customer reviews and the ability to cancel unshipped orders online. But the site still has some rough edges. For example, its express checkout process is confusing, and the site charges customers a fee to order out-of-stock items.

Runner-up PlanetRx.com sports the best site performance and the quickest customer service replies. Additional positives include online order tracking, but the site lacks express checkout, customer reviews, and a 24-hour call center.

VitaminShoppe.com winds up a distant third due to low scores across the board. The site's consistent navigation is a plus, but even loyal customers spend as much time checking out as first-time buyers. WebRx.com -- a combination of three health sites -- needs to work out the kinks in the new site, such as forcing shoppers to double-check zip codes and deleting different product types from the cart in different ways.

"drugstore.com manages to stay just ahead of a hard-charging PlanetRX.com, while the rest of the field lags far behind," said Tom Rhinelander, senior analyst at Forrester Research. "Slow checkout and inconsistent customer service did in VitaminShoppe.com, while WebRx.com no doubt is struggling as it tries to integrate a host of sites including more.com, vitamins.com, and HealthCentralRx.com."

For the latest PowerRankings, Forrester surveyed 20,000 consumers from the NPD Group's online panel. These consumers identified the eCommerce sites that they purchased from most recently and rated their experiences. A team of Forrester shoppers then evaluated the shopping experience on sites that have a statistically valid number of consumer respondents by performing a series of rigorous tests.

eRecruiting Sites: Great Expansion Opportunities
Aiming to take advantage of many companies' urgent need to post job openings on their own Web sites, erecruiting vendors are now offering Web hosting services. According to IDC, this additional service could hit a bull's eye with many companies struggling to keep their employment Web sites fresh and dynamic in the wake of increasing pressure from the rapid pace of erecruiting.

"If a company is unable to keep job postings up-to-date, contact applicants promptly, and interview interested candidates via its own Web site, qualified job seekers may be scooped up by more savvy recruiters," said Christopher Boone, an analyst with IDC's eRecruiting research program. "As a result, many companies are likely to realize they can benefit by leveraging Web hosting capabilities from outside vendors to create and manage dynamic corporate career Web sites."

According to IDC, erecruiting firms that succeed in the Web hosting market will be those who provide strong development, integration, support, and maintenance capabilities. Additionally, these firms will help their clients demonstrate to management that corporate employment Web sites serve as frontline marketing for the company.

Further, IDC believes that a great potential for cross-promotion exists between hosting services providers and erecruiting vendors as small and midsize businesses begin to outsource their employment Web sites.

News Tidbits (appears every day on front page)
- Women.com is the latest site to lay off numerous employees. On Wednesday, the dot com company laid of 25% of its entire staff -- 85 employees total. Another eCompany, Oxygen Media, laid off 65 employees and has plans to reorganize its entire structure. Dot com layoffs are happening virtually daily and are a clear sign of eBusiness strategies that simply do not work.

- Opera has released a new version of its Web browser, this time making it free in an attempt to take on Internet Explorer and Netscape for overall market share. The browser use to cost $39 and had 1.5 million users. The company hopes that making it free will significantly increase its market share.