Download the UK eCommerce Index: Which Retailers are Setting the Standard for Best Web Experience?
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Introducing the 2022 Digital Retail Index
Understanding what a top-performing website looks like today is a good way to benchmark your own and make any improvements. The UK 2022 Digital Retail Index, developed by Remarkable, is based on a regular analysis of retailers from the IRUK Top500 list.
The criteria used to create the index use Google’s Lighthouse tool to monitor performance based on four groups of metrics, these are:
Accessibility
SEO
User experience (UX)
Site speed (milliseconds of load speed)
Further details on these metrics are available here. The total scores were calculated using all available metrics of the Google Lighthouse report, including the 4 columns of stats shown below.
Top 10 websites
The top 10 performing retailers are a mix of traditional high street names and online-only brands. Leading the way with 381 out of 400, having gained an impressive perfect score of 100 for SEO and 98 for accessibility, is cosmetics retailer The Body Shop.
Pet food and accessories retailer Jollyes and outdoor apparel brand Regatta completed the top three, outperforming major brands including Dunelm, Holland & Barrett and WHSmith.
Top Performing Retailers
The index also revealed the top-performing websites in different categories of retail and once again, we saw a mix of established retailers and newcomers, with some operating online only while others have physical outlets too.
Fashion/Apparel Retailers
1 - Regatta
2 - Moss Bros
3 - Craghoppers
4 - Warren James
5 - Roman
6 - Joy
7 - Ugg
8 - SneakersNStuff
9 - Calvin Klein
10 - Mainline Menswear
Homeware
1 - Dunelm
2 - Swoon
3 - Victoria Plum
4 - Fortnum & Mason
5 - Etsy
6 - David Shuttle
7 - Harrods
8 - Walls and Floors
9 - Liberty London
10 - John Lewis
Health, beauty and wellbeing
1 - The Body Shop
2 - Holland & Barrett
3 - Feel Unique
4 - Liberty London
5 - Beauty Bay
6 - Kiehl’s
7 - Dior
8 - Avon
9 - Liz Earle
10 - Specsavers
Why it matters
Even a slight deterioration in performance can hit sales and brand loyalty, particularly during busy sales periods like Black Friday and Christmas. Investment in SEO is non-negotiable for most businesses today – but eCommerce firms, in particular, will simply slide into obsolescence if they don’t maintain a strong web presence.
Achieving a high (or top) position in Google’s search results depends on multiple factors and website performance is critical. Sites with fast loading speeds, relevant content and good UX will outrank those that don’t, so retailers that want to stay ahead need to continually measure performance using Google’s Lighthouse tool and make technical improvements to support SEO.
Products & services
Commerce platform
Remarkable Commerce is the powerful, unified eCommerce platform that delivers fully-tailored omni-channel experiences for many leading UK retail brands.
PlatformMobile apps
Grow revenue through an additional sales channel and utilise our out-of-the-box framework to launch a Native eCommerce App. Customised and stylised for you, then smoothly launched by Remarkable Commerce.
MobileMarketing services
We take great pride in establishing the best marketing methods to reach your business goals. If you're not sure which of our services best meet your needs, get in touch - we would love to have a chat!
SEOFinal thoughts
The pandemic fuelled a flurry of online sales activity and those who’d invested in a well-performing and scalable website were in a prime position to benefit from this demand.
Shopper habits have now changed for good, shifting even further towards eCommerce, and retailers have to be ready for surges during peak periods.
Given the technical capabilities of some of the biggest eCommerce companies, most notably Amazon, managing website performance to the standard required can feel daunting. However, as the Digital Retail Index indicates, not every retailer that operates online comes from an eCommerce background, nor do they work on a global scale.
A cloud-native website, with easy-to-use integrations, means you can optimise performance and scale up as demand grows.
You can also lean on your platform provider for the technical skills and expertise you might not have within your own team. Our developers and engineers deliver and refine our B2C ecommerce platform so you see real improvements in website performance – the driver for visibility, web traffic, conversions and sales.
Methodology
To create the 2022 Digital Retail Index, Remarkable looked at the retailers listed on the Internet Retailing Top 500. Remarkable then compared each site based on five core metrics, using Google Lighthouse to create an unbiased view of the top UK eCommerce websites. These four metrics are performance and speed, progressive web app validation, accessibility, best practices and SEO.