Amazon Wins, Netflix Loses in Holiday Satisfaction Study [VIDEO]

Internet shoppers were happy with Amazon and disappointed in Netflix this holiday season, according to a study released Wednesday.

In an annual index of ecommerce sites’ customer satisfaction by analytics firm ForeSee, Amazon’s performance improved while Netflix’s plunged after the two companies spent several years dueling for the study’s top spot. Amazon’s overall score rose two points to register 88 out of 100 possible points for the index’s best mark.

But Netflix, following a year marred by a series of service and public relations missteps, saw its total fall seven points for an overall rank of 79. The 8% decline in score was the steepest of all the companies included in the study.

The survey considers a range of factors to rank online retailers, including website content, functionality, merchandise and prices. ForeSee considers a score of 80 to be “the standard for excellence.”

Netflix appears to be experiencing continued blowback from a fiasco-plagued 2011. In July, the company unexpectedly raised its prices for both streaming and DVD delivery by 60%. Then in August, it attempted to create a spinoff company that would have required customers to create two separate accounts for what was previously one service.

Netflix then scrapped that plan in October, but its stock price had already lost half its value the month before. ForeSee says its holiday satisfaction survey is the first methodical assessment of customer satisfaction with Netflix since company’s blunders earlier this year.

“Customer satisfaction is predictive, which means that Netflix’s financial woes may be just beginning,” ForeSee president Larry Freed said in a statement accompanying the study’s release.

Amazon, meanwhile, continues its dominance of the online retail space in multiple sectors and rebranded its streaming video service earlier this year to better compete with Netflix. Amazon has also received a boost from its line of popular Kindle products, which have sold at an astounding rate recently.

While Amazon enjoyed a glowing review according to the holiday shopping study, other companies made even more impressive jumps in online customer satisfaction. Electronics retailer TigerDirect.com made the largest jump, with an 8 percent increase in customer satisfaction for an overall score of 79. JC Penney, which named former Apple executive Ron Johnson as CEO earlier this year, improved by 6% for an overall score of 83.

Gap.com and Overstock.com posted the steepest declines after Netflix, falling six and five percent, respectively. Gap.com registered an overall score of 73, while Overstock.coms’ score was 72.

General online shopper satisfaction has increased from 74 when the holiday satisfaction study began in 2005 to an all-time high of 79 this year.

Where do Netflix and Amazon stand in your opinion? What e-retailers were you impressed or let down by this holiday season?

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Look for more aggressive spending after Putin loses ground in Russia

The weekend's parliamentary elections showed support for Vladimir Putin's "United Russia" party declining to the point where he barely has a simple majority to fall back on. These results are worth a closer look.

Merrill Lynch is out in front noting that Putin is on track to get 49.7% of the total votes, well below the 53% to 56% majority he was expected to bring down a few weeks ago.

This is shocking in light of recent events where Putin was actually heckled in public by Russians tired of his policies. If the trend continues, he might have trouble getting an easy bid in the presidential election next March.

He will probably be reelected, but even an incremental erosion of his once-total power says a lot about where Russia is going.

Look for the Kremlin to boost social spending and otherwise attempt to influence the voting public over the next few months. This will in turn expand Russia's public debt and perhaps create new budget deficits next year.

Traders are already nervous about a lack of fiscal discipline in Russia after the departure of finance minister Alexei Kudrin. This may make sentiment for the RSX ( quote ) worse in the next few months.

After that, all those public projects will leave Russian voters wealthier and the domestic economy on the move.