Best Luggage Stores From Consumer Reports' Latest Survey
Online sites win over walk-ins, with Away topping CR's luggage-retailer ratings and Amazon a close second
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If you need to buy a suitcase, a backpack, a weekender or another bag for travel, there are compelling reasons for going directly to a walk-in store. You can measure the luggage to make sure it fits your needs, feel the handles, roll it around, or check the material and the color options. Yet Consumer Reports finds that you may well be more satisfied letting your fingers do the shopping.
In a recent survey of more than 4,700 Consumer Reports members who told us they’d purchased luggage in the past two years, those who bought online were more satisfied overall than those who purchased in-store. That was true for all aspects we asked about: customer service, ease of checkout, price, product quality, and selection.
And the luggage retailer our members liked the best was Away, a higher-end brand that began selling its stylish, mainly hard-sided luggage exclusively from its website in 2015. (The company has since opened 13 storefronts worldwide.) Away, which markets itself as the go-to name for peripatetic millennials, sits atop all luggage retailers in our survey regarding overall satisfaction. It earned our best scores in almost every attribute: selection, product quality, customer service, checkout ease, website usability, and web support. Its main drawback, according to our members: price. Its lowest-priced model, the Carry-On, costs $275 and doesn’t get discounted often. (In recent tests, CR recently gave that suitcase favorable marks.)
Other Great Luggage Retailers
For a greater range of brands and prices, Consumer Reports members made their second choice the mother of all web sellers, Amazon. The retailing giant, which received a favorable overall score, was cited for its pricing, customer service, and web support. It received stellar marks for its selection, product quality, ease of checkout, and web usability. Notably, while one can buy any number of brands on Amazon, Consumer Reports recently judged a 21-inch, carry-on sized, hard-shell suitcase from Amazon’s own brand, Amazon Basics, to be a very good value.
Pandemic Impact on Shopping
Our current survey covers luggage purchases made from August 2020 through August 2022—a pandemic timeline starting when some Americans resumed travel after lockdowns and ending at a time when air, train, and road travel had picked up a lot. And during that time, new luggage clearly wasn’t a priority. Of the more than 37,174 Consumer Reports members we surveyed about their luggage preferences, satisfaction with the bags they owned, and experiences buying luggage, just 16 percent said they’d bought new luggage in that two-year pandemic period.
But when they did buy, they increasingly did so online. Almost half—47 percent—of all luggage purchases in our survey were made online, up from one-third in our last survey, published in 2019.
Was the COVID-19 pandemic the cause of that change? Tian Wang, the CR senior research associate who managed the luggage stores survey, says the survey results don’t say. “However, we do know that online buyers were more satisfied with their shopping experience on key survey attributes such as price paid, quality of luggage, and ease of checkout,” she says. “And this is consistent with our findings in the past.”
When asked about luggage selection, for instance, 42 percent of members who bought online were “completely satisfied” (our highest rating), vs. 14 percent for those who bought at walk-in stores. Fifty-six percent of online buyers also were completely satisfied with product quality, compared with 37 percent of walk-ins.
And though just 18 percent of luggage purchases were made through manufacturers’ stores, walk-in factory outlets, or websites, those buyers were more satisfied with their shopping experience than shoppers who used chains or independent retailers in terms of product quality, customer service, ease of checkout, usability of website, and web customer support than other consumers. Only on price were they less satisfied.
For more buying tips, check our luggage buying guide, and to see which carry-on and checked luggage brands top our ratings, check our reviews of the best carry-on luggage brands and the best checked luggage brands.
Great Luggage From Two Top Retailers
Away and Amazon both sell spinner suitcases that performed admirably in CR’s ratings of hard-shell carry-on luggage.
