Amazon, Costco, UPS rank highest in corporate reputation poll
Retailers scored well in an annual survey assessing corporate reputation.
Amazon, Costco Wholesale Corp. and UPS took the top two spots in Caliber’s annual U.S. Fortune 30 Most Trusted & Liked Companies Survey. FedEx and Lowe’s rounded out the top five. (See list of top 10 companies at end of article.)
Amazon, Costco, and UPS topped the list with a “Trust & Like Score” (TLS) of 78, which was two points lower than last year for Amazon and one point higher for Costco and UPS. Costco and UPS are two of only five companies on the list this year to improve their TLS. FedEx had a score of 77 and Lowe’s and Home Depot tied for third at 76 points.
The same study also found that significantly more companies fell in the TLS ranking, compared to years past, when reputation scores have risen or remained neutral.
The U.S. ranking is one of 11 country rankings that Caliber will publish this year. Adidas has the best corporate reputation in Germany, while Michelin has the top spot in France. Cosmetics group Natura tops the list in Brazil, and food retail giant Tesco claims the best reputation in the U.K.
Caliber’s annual Trust & Like Score ranking is based on a daily tracking study that measures public perceptions of the 30 largest and most visible Fortune 500 companies, selected based on their annual revenue and familiarity among the general public. This year’s results are based on 14,230 evaluations throughout 2024 representing the U.S. population.
“Amazon maintains its strong reputation and position at the top of the list, which likely reflects its consistent presence in most Americans’ lives and its continued drive to innovate,” said Shahar Silbershatz, CEO, Caliber, a stakeholder intelligence company “The fact that Amazon has maintained this lead even with a two-point drop in its Trust & Like Score is an impressive sign of the reputational capital it has banked, given the reputational hurdles like employee strikes that it faced in 2024.”
Here’s this year’s top 10:
- Amazon: 78
- Costco: 78
- UPS: 78
- FedEx: 77
- Lowe’s: 76
- The Home Depot: 76
- Kroger: 74
- CVS Health: 73
- Target: 72
- Walmart: 72
Other notable rankings include Apple (12th place with a TLS of 70, down four points from 2023) and Meta (29th place with a TLS of 54, down four). Tesla, at 30th place, was the biggest faller of the year, its TLS having fallen further than any other company by a margin of at least five.
Methodology
Caliber’s annual Trust & Like Score ranking is based on a daily tracking study that measures public perceptions of the 30 largest and most visible Fortune 500 companies, selected based on their annual revenue and familiarity among the general public. This year’s results are based on 14,230 evaluations throughout 2024 representing the U.S. population.
The Trust & Like Score is a metric developed by Caliber that measures a company's reputation and brand strength. Companies can use this information to better understand their stakeholders and improve communications and stakeholder relations.
Caliber uses the Trust & Like Score as its chief metric because research shows that stakeholder behavior is closely linked to the degree to which people trust and like a company. The score is calculated by averaging responses to two sentences: "[Company] is a company I like" and "[Company] is a company I trust." The results are then compared to a normative scale to determine if the score is positive or negative.