“Sofa So Good” for DFS - and an improving picture for UK retail websites

LONDON - May 23, 2013 - PRLog -- That’s the finding of the latest Sitemorse Retail 500 Index, a unique benchmark of the websites of the UK’s top retailers. Testing of the top 500 sites in the retail world generates a ranked table based on checks to Quality, User Experience, Accessibility, Performance and SEO capability of each of the websites.

Our second retail index of 2013 shows plenty of ‘green’ websites – those moving up the table – with perhaps-unfamiliar names such as H.I.Weldrick, Budget DIY, M&M Direct and Slater Menswear making dramatic improvements to their scores.

So what makes a good website? We have been benchmarking them for years, and in our view it’s those who really care about the quality of their end product who get the laurels.

But it’s “sofa, so good” at the top of our table for furniture sellers DFS, who return to the top position in our table once again having dominated our UK retail rankings for the last five years. With an overall score of  9.5 of a possible ten marks, the DFS website scores top marks in function, accessibility and performance and now has a clear lead over second-placed Anoushka London (9.3/10) and third placed Pownall Carpets (8/10).

DFS, Anoushka London, the niche fashion and jewellery outlet and Lancashire-based Pownall Carpets, who have been producing traditional carpets based on British wool for more than half a century, couldn’t be further apart in terms of product, market and message, but their error-free sites are way ahead of other retailers.

Just behind them in the top five-placed retailers are KD Beds, which has been selling beds and carpets from Harrogate for the last quarter century (7.4/10) and – also based in the North – Greenhalgh’s Bakers, a thriving chain of retail shops serving the North-West of England (7.3/10).

Just behind them are convenience store chain Spar UK, Adams Childrenswear, the Whisky Shop, and newcomer to our Index H.I.Weldrick, a family-owned business with more than 600 employees that runs 62 pharmacies across South Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire.

Our top 15 has no less than five retailers specialising in furniture, beds and carpets, but fashion gets a look-in too thanks to Anoushka, Vivi, Fendi, Racing Green, H&M and Jo Alexander, whose websites are all rated in our top 20.

H.I.Weldrick started in 1930’s Doncaster, when the grandmother of the current company chairman set up a chemists shop. These days the retailer stocks more than 8,000 health and beauty and prescription products and has the distinction of being the biggest riser in our table, an upwards move of no less than 423 places, taking them from near enough the bottom of the table to 8th place overall. Up an amazing 310 places is the American Golf Retail Centre, which despite its name is actually Europe’s largest golf retailer with more than 100 stores in the UK and Northern Ireland. Price comparison site for the DIY trade, Budget DIY, rises 270 places.

When partners Mark Ellis and Martin Churchward set up shop selling end-of-line sports products in 1987 they probably didn’t suspect their company M&M Direct would become an international discount fashion retailer with more than 3 million active customers. Their website is still only 176th in our table but has risen 226 places this time, making theirs a website to watch. According to their estimates, a staggering 34 million visitors a year do just that. The website was relaunched three years ago and has been followed by sites covering the Danish, Irish and French fashion markets.

Family-run Slater Menswear may be a new name, but the company boasts the world’s largest menswear store – and it’s in Glasgow. Slater cannot be found on the high street, but their website features fun as well as sales pitches – you can watch a video that tells you how to wear a kilt, for example. The site has risen 226 places in our Index and takes 50th position.

Of course, Sitemorse Index scores can go down as well as up, and the biggest fallers this time are also fashion chains, albeit better known.  They are Evans (-261), Topshop (-269), Wallis (-293), Alexon (-306) and Timberland (UK) (-308). We don’t like to dwell on those who don’t score highly in our Index, but it’s also worth looking towards the bottom of our table to see how many well-known high street names have websites sorely in need of improvement.

The ranked table for Q2 includes only 449 retailers because merchants were excluded from the testing if they used assistive technology such as JavaScript, which breaks the general “rules of accessibility” of internet sites. More than 30 sites were excluded on these grounds, including those of Austin Reed, Benetton, HMV, Jane Norman and J Sainsbury. Nine websites were classed as ‘error-free’ under Sitemorse criteria, including many mentioned so far and top grocer Fortnum & Mason.

Sitemorse concluded: If 34 million visitors a year go to a website placed 176th in our retail table, how many go to the ones with household names every day, week month and year?

It’s vital  that users get the best quality experience when they go to your site - there are always plenty of competitors around waiting to pick up sales .Offering the lowest prices may be a big draw, but if users encounter errors and problems, they will go elsewhere in seconds. The companies named as having the best retail websites here cover a huge raft of different styles, products and locations, but what they all have in common is that they really care about the experience of their customers. Online, that translates to having an efficient website that gives customers an enjoyable experience, making them want to buy more online or visit the stores.

Technical Data

This survey took place on April 28th, 2013 and involved benchmarking more than two million separate URLs. Poorest code quality was recorded for the Game site, with more than 770,000 failures. Fastest overall response time from any site tested was the convenience store chain Londis.