Vitacost.com, Inc., a leading online retailer of healthy living products, announced that it has been ranked #5 for fastest Order Life Cycle, a metric that combines the total days to deliver an order with the total days to process a refund, according to StellaService, a company that measures the customer service performance of online retailers. StellaService analyzed 5,000 orders and refunds placed at 138 online retailers during a one-year time-frame beginning in July 2013. In the category of vitamins and supplements, Vitacost.com ranked #1.

Order Life Cycle (OLC) includes two measurements: Total Days to Delivery, which calculates total days from when an order is submitted online to when the package arrives; and Total Days to Refund Processed, which measures days elapsed from when an item is returned to when a refund is posted to the customer's credit card statement. Vitacost.com's average OLC was 8.7 days, well below the 15.8 average for all 138 online retailers analyzed in the survey.

"In terms of pure refund speed, at just 5.9 days to process a refund, Vitacost.com has consistently been among the top performers in the industry. In a separate survey looking specifically at refund speed, Vitacost ranked #6 out of all the companies we reviewed," stated Kevon Hills, StellaService Vice President of Research. "Where they have really improved is on the delivery side of the OLC equation, improving speed of delivery from an average of 6 days at the beginning of 2013 to an average of 3 days during the second quarter of this year."

"We are continually working to improve the customer experience at Vitacost.com and have made a concerted effort over the past year to improve the efficiency of our fulfillment organization, including adding regional carriers to increase the speed of delivery to our customers," stated Jay Topper, Chief Information and Technology Officer of Vitacost.com. "We also launched a customer service portal, 'Service Central', during the latter part of 2013, which allows customers to instantly request a refund or replacement product by logging into their account and completing a few simple steps. This has helped automate and further enhance the post-sale experience. We are thrilled with our Top 5 ranking in recognition of our efforts and view customer satisfaction as a critical measure of Vitacost's success."