
Over the last few years, a funny thing happened to brick-and-mortar retailing. It didn't die. Not only that, it appears to be thriving as American retailing continues its recovery from the pandemic. According to the National Retail Federation, total retail sales are expected to grow at a healthy clip of between 6 percent and 8 percent this year to $4.86 trillion, and most of those sales will take place not online but in actual stores. According to the NRF, e-commerce sales peaked at 19 percent of total retail sales in April 2020 and are now about 15 percent.
All of which means, the experience of shopping in a store—the ability to touch and try different products in real life, to get sales help and advice, to enjoy the experience of browsing—is something customers still want and value. To find out which U.S. retailers are doing the best job of satisfying their customers, Newsweek and Statista worked together to create the 2022 America's Best Retailers rankings.
We asked shoppers to rank stores in 39 product categories and awarded the 195 best. Shoppers who participated in our survey were asked how likely they
were to recommend a retailer to friends and family as well as how they ranked the retailer on factors including price, selection and overall atmosphere. The number of winners in each category varies by the total number of eligible companies. For supermarkets, for instance, where there is a very large number of entrants we've named the top ten; for auto parts, where there are fewer brands eligible, we've named the top three. We hope you find our ranking useful as you make your own choices about where you and your family shop.

Parent Category | Category | Rank | Retailer | Score |
---|---|---|---|---|
Food, Health & Beauty | Chocolate and Candy Stores | 1 | Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory | 92.35 |
Food, Health & Beauty | Chocolate and Candy Stores | 2 | See's Candies | 90.06 |
Food, Health & Beauty | Chocolate and Candy Stores | 3 | Great American Cookies | 89.73 |
Food, Health & Beauty | Chocolate and Candy Stores | 4 | Edible Arrangements | 89.28 |
Food, Health & Beauty | Chocolate and Candy Stores | 5 | Lindt | 89.06 |
Food, Health & Beauty | Convenience Stores | 1 | Wawa | 89.87 |
Food, Health & Beauty | Convenience Stores | 2 | Sheetz | 88.30 |
Food, Health & Beauty | Convenience Stores | 3 | Thorntons | 87.47 |
Food, Health & Beauty | Convenience Stores | 4 | QuikTrip | 86.91 |
Food, Health & Beauty | Convenience Stores | 5 | Pilot Flying J | 84.68 |
Food, Health & Beauty | Discount Supermarkets | 1 | Trader Joe's | 89.06 |
Food, Health & Beauty | Discount Supermarkets | 2 | 99 Cents Only Stores | 85.95 |
Food, Health & Beauty | Discount Supermarkets | 3 | Aldi | 84.63 |
Food, Health & Beauty | Eyewear | 1 | Stanton Optical | 89.74 |
Food, Health & Beauty | Eyewear | 2 | Warby Parker | 89.45 |
Food, Health & Beauty | Eyewear | 3 | Pearle Vision | 86.42 |
Food, Health & Beauty | Eyewear | 4 | LensCrafters | 85.77 |
Food, Health & Beauty | Eyewear | 5 | Cohen's Fashion Optical | 85.46 |
Food, Health & Beauty | Hearing Care | 1 | Beltone | 86.37 |
Food, Health & Beauty | Hearing Care | 2 | Miracle-Ear | 81.20 |
Food, Health & Beauty | Hearing Care | 3 | Amplifon | 79.85 |
Food, Health & Beauty | Perfume and Cosmetics | 1 | L'Occitane | 91.18 |
Food, Health & Beauty | Perfume and Cosmetics | 2 | Bath and Body Works | 90.96 |
Food, Health & Beauty | Perfume and Cosmetics | 3 | Ulta Beauty | 90.04 |
Food, Health & Beauty | Perfume and Cosmetics | 4 | LUSH | 89.52 |
Food, Health & Beauty | Perfume and Cosmetics | 5 | Sephora | 89.51 |
Food, Health & Beauty | Pharmacies and Drugstores | 1 | Good Neighbor Pharmacy | 88.11 |
Food, Health & Beauty | Pharmacies and Drugstores | 2 | Giant Eagle Pharmacy | 84.81 |
Food, Health & Beauty | Pharmacies and Drugstores | 3 | Walgreens | 84.54 |
Food, Health & Beauty | Pharmacies and Drugstores | 4 | Walmart Pharmacy | 84.50 |
Food, Health & Beauty | Pharmacies and Drugstores | 5 | CVS Pharmacy | 83.53 |
Food, Health & Beauty | Supermarkets | 1 | Wegmans | 92.25 |
Food, Health & Beauty | Supermarkets | 2 | Publix | 91.67 |
Food, Health & Beauty | Supermarkets | 3 | Harps Food Stores | 89.62 |
Food, Health & Beauty | Supermarkets | 4 | Sprouts | 88.38 |
Food, Health & Beauty | Supermarkets | 5 | Whole Foods Markets | 87.67 |
Food, Health & Beauty | Supermarkets | 6 | Fresh Thyme Farmers Market | 87.49 |
Food, Health & Beauty | Supermarkets | 7 | The Fresh Market | 87.39 |
Food, Health & Beauty | Supermarkets | 8 | WinCo Foods | 87.03 |
Food, Health & Beauty | Supermarkets | 9 | Kroger | 86.14 |
Food, Health & Beauty | Supermarkets | 10 | Earth Fare | 85.21 |
Food, Health & Beauty | Superstores and Warehouse Club Stores | 1 | Costco | 88.05 |
Food, Health & Beauty | Superstores and Warehouse Club Stores | 2 | Target | 86.55 |
Food, Health & Beauty | Superstores and Warehouse Club Stores | 3 | Sam's Club | 86.31 |
Food, Health & Beauty | Superstores and Warehouse Club Stores | 4 | BJ's | 85.88 |
Food, Health & Beauty | Superstores and Warehouse Club Stores | 5 | Meijer | 85.87 |
If your company is listed above, you can find out more about the licensing options by visiting the Statista website.
Methodology:
THE 2022 AMERICA'S Best Retailers rankings were identified from the results of an independent survey of more than 10,000 U.S. customers who have shopped at the retailers in-person in the past three years. In total, over 150,000 evaluations were collected. The awarded retailers each received on average 100 evaluations from customers.
The survey was conducted on retailers in 39 categories, providing results for a broad-spectrum of customer experiences in traditional retail.
For each category, only retailers present in at least two census regions have been included in the list (with exceptions for retailers with 600 or more locations).
The survey took an average of 9-11 minutes to complete, and the field period ran from February to March 2022. The survey was conducted using online access panels set up by a survey company. Anyone could register and agree to take part in the surveys. Each participant gave an evaluation of several retailers:
The final assessment and rankings are based on the likelihood of survey participants recommending the retailer to friends and family (50% of the final score) and five evaluation criteria (also 50% of the final score). The evaluation criteria were weighted according to the importance survey participants put on them.
The five evaluation criteria are:
1. Products: measures the quality, price, range and variety of products offered in-store (weighted 19%).
2. Customer Service: measures the friendliness, helpfulness and availability of employees in-store (weighted 19%).
3. Atmosphere: measures the general atmosphere, lighting/illumination, music, cleanliness of stores (weighted 19%).
4. Accessibility: measures the parking availability, store hours, convenience of store location (weighted 19%).
5. Shop Layout: measures the order that products are displayed, aisle size, product-presentation, mannequins, store size (weighted 18%).
The top 3-10 retailers based on category size receiving the highest scores in each category were awarded as America's Best Retailers 2022 .
Download the full methodology here.