Discount department stores Costco and Kmart are the lead contenders for the annual Roy Morgan Discount Department Store Customer Satisfaction Award.

Both stores have improved their customer satisfaction over the past year with Michele Levine, CEO, Roy Morgan saying that Kmart and Costco have clearly been the two stand-out discount department stores in 2017 and either retailer would be a worthy winner of the award.

“Determining Australia’s leading discount department store for 2017 has come down to the final month of 2017 with Costco on a customer satisfaction rating of 88.9 per cent narrowly defeating key rival Kmart on 88.3 per cent to take out the November monthly award,” Levine said. Neither retailer has previously won the award.

Costco, with five victories, and Kmart, four victories, have notched up several monthly victories in 2017 and both retailers are in the running for their first annual prize with one month of results to go.

Another monthly win would see Costco win the Customer Satisfaction Award for 2017. On the other hand if Kmart wins in December, the annual result will be based on percentage scores and there will be little between the two.

Defending Discount Department Store of the year Target has lost ground over the past year and been unable to build on an early monthly victory in March 2017. Target’s customer satisfaction rating of 87.5 per cent in November is down 0.4 per cent points on a year ago.

Also losing ground in the year to November 2017 are Steinhoff Asia-Pacific’s two discount department stores – Harris Scarfe on a customer satisfaction rating of 85.9 per cent, down 1.6 per cent points on a year ago, and Best & Less on 85.2 per cent, down 2.2 per cent points.

“The strong performance of Steinhoff’s Australian assets in recent months, including discount department store retailers Harris Scarfe and Best & Less, means there remains significant value for parent company Steinhoff International to unlock through a sale of these retail chains should the South African parent company need to raise further capital to settle upcoming debts as many analysts have speculated,” said Levine.

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