Retailers continue to reign when it comes to consumers’ trust, filling the top eight places in Roy Morgan’s recent ‘Net Trust’ rankings.

The market research company analysed nominations from more than 22,000 Australians to identify the nation’s most-trusted brands – and the least trusted.

According to the list, Woolworths, Coles, Bunnings, Aldi and Kmart were the five most-trusted brands for a fifth straight quarter. In the next three places were Myer, Apple and Big W. Australia Post and Toyota completed the top 10.

At the other end of the table, Harvey Norman ranked sixth most distrusted brands – down one place on the previous quarter – with Amazon fourth, the two retailers split only by Newscorp.

National carrier Qantas – previously highly trusted in the September quarter – plunged to 40th place on the list following a series of flight delays and cancellations, rising ticket prices and soaring instances of lost luggage.

Likewise, Optus – which suffered a data breach last year – is now the second most distrusted brand in the December quarter with Meta taking last spot.

Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine said brands need to be “aware of the dangers that distrust presents” amid rising scandals.

“What we see with brands that suffer major scandals is that once distrust takes hold, it is very difficult to curtail. The first step in re-building trust is to eliminate distrust.”