Richer Sounds, John Lewis and Marks Electrical have come out on top of a new ranking of the best and worst home appliance and tech stores in the UK, leading the table due to their product range, quality and returns policies.
According to a survey of almost 3,400 people who had bought household appliances and around 3,500 who had bought tech products in the previous six months, carried out by Which?, TV, hi-fi and home cinema supplier Richer Sounds, topped the tech leaderboard with a customer score of 89%.
Richer Sounds has consistently landed the top spot in Which?’s tech category and is the only retailer to get the full five stars for value for money, the survey shows. It scored five stars across several categories including value for money, product quality, customer service during the buying process and delivery.
John Lewis followed in second place for their tech, with a score of 85%, with the retailer receiving five stars for product quality, customer service and delivery.
John Lewis also led the table for the best home appliance store and received a score of 88% and excelled at product range, quality, delivery and after-sales service and returns and got impressive customer scores for both home appliance and tech purchases.
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“With Black Friday and Christmas fast approaching, shoppers may be looking to get a new device or appliance – but we’ve found some retailers simply aren’t up to scratch when it comes to quality or customer service,” said Harry Rose, editor of Which? magazine.
At the other end of the spectrum, The Range finished at the bottom of the table (66%) for home appliances, scoring just two stars for customer service and product range, with Wilko and Homebase just above it – with each scoring 67%.
Sainsbury’s got the lowest score in the tech category (67%), scoring two stars for after-sales service and returns, and fellow supermarkets Asda (70%) and Tesco (72%) join it in the bottom five.
Sainsbury’s and Tesco also had low scores compared to others for home appliances (71% and 70%), partly down to their limited range and unremarkable customer service during buying – perhaps to be expected given that this is not their specialist product area.
“Our research shows that shoppers wanting help with big purchases could be best off sticking to retailers that excel with their customer care and technical expertise,” Rose added.
Here are the rankings from the survey:
Top 10 tech stores
The 10 worst ranked tech stores
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Sainsbury’s (SBRY.L)
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The Range
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Asda/George
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Garne
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Tesco (TSCO.L)
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Lenovo
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Currys
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Laptops Direct
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HP (HP)
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Dell
Top 10 home appliance stores
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John Lewis
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Marks Electrical
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AO
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Euronics
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Lakeland
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Amazon
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Argos
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Samsung
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Appliances Direct
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Dunelm
The 10 worst ranked home appliances stores
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The Range
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Wilko
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Homebase
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Tesco
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Sainsbury’s
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QVC
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B&Q
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B&M
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Costco
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Asda/George
