Best Places to Buy Small Appliances
Amazon is great, but it's not the best place to buy small appliances, according to CR's survey-based ratings of 19 retailers
While mega-retailer Amazon.com outperforms most of its competitors in Consumer Reports’ latest ratings of small appliance retailers, Chicagoland’s Abt takes the top spot for overall customer satisfaction. Its strong performance also bumps QVC.com—the top shop in our 2022 survey—down to fifth place.
The family-owned retailer, in business since 1936, also earned the top position in our ratings of large-appliance stores, achieving an overall excellent score—a notch higher than its Overall Score among small-appliance retailers. No small-appliance retailers achieved an excellent overall score in CR’s ratings.
For those beyond the reach of the top retailer’s Glenview, Ill. megastore, it’s worth noting that the retailer’s website offers a top-notch experience for those purchasing small appliances, according to our survey. Members also rated its small-appliance selection and service as excellent, though its prices, they told us, were not necessarily worth writing home about.
Our scores are based on a survey of 13,147 CR members, who told us about 16,619 small-appliance purchases they made from January 2023 to May 2024. These purchases included air fryers, coffee makers, vacuum cleaners, toaster ovens, microwaves, blenders, and other small appliances.
