Eddie Bauer Gets It, and It Shows

"Troy Brown, divisional vice president of e-commerce at Eddie Bauer, told the E-Commerce Times that there is no magic mix of hardware and software in use. Rather, the company stays on top of its game by holding true to some very nontechnical tactics derived from Eddie himself. "When he launched the company, he would literally run from customer to customer," Brown said. "Our goal is to bring that to our site."

"In the company's headquarters is a customer experience lab, where users surf the site and suggest changes. Any potential change to the site is tested extensively in this lab. If it fails the lab test, it is discarded, according to Brown. 'We say that our site is designed by our customers, for our customers,' he said. 'Customers are involved in every step of design and improvement.' ... The lab has been operating for two years, and Brown said the amount of change that has taken place in that time period has been staggering. Eddie Bauer has seen a large decrease in cart abandonment and a big boost in new customers." from E-Commerce News: What Is Eddie Bauer Doing Right?

Just another example...
Just look at the top ecommerce sites, the sites cited day in and day out as "best practice" sites: every one of them has used a healthy dose of usability methods in getting to and staying in front of the competition. See Amazon, Google, Ebay, Land's End, Eddie Bauer, Yahoo!, etc., etc., etc.

See also:
- Good Experience: Interview with Marissa Mayer, Product Manager, Google
- Good Experience: Interview with Maryam Mohit, Amazon.com