Best Buy, Barnes & Noble most reliable retailers this holiday season

Retail websites are becoming just as important as brick-and-mortar presences for most retailers, and this is never more apparent than during the retail holiday season. For those customers who don't wish to beat each other up while standing in 6am Black Friday lines, sitting at home ordering holiday presents over the web is the preferred shopping method.

I've written many times in the recent past about how consumer electronics retailer Best Buy, Inc. (NYSE: BBY) gets more things right than wrong. The company's merchandise presentation, helpful employees and overall shopping experience is miles ahead of competitor Circuit City Stores, Inc. (NYSE: CC) from my experience. But, how about the performance of its website? I'll admit that I've never ordered a single thing from Best Buy's website. Apparently, I am missing out there.

In a recent study of retail website performance over the recent holiday season, Best Buy was joined with bookseller Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS) and outdoor retailer Cabelas, Inc. (NYSE: CAB) as having the highest reliability of all retailers in a field of 26 candidates. Other retailers monitored included the world's largest online retailer -- Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) and Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT). In terms of specific website performance figures like page downloading and transaction completion speed, retailers Circuit City and Victoria's Secret ranked at the top.