672 brands. 8 sectors. Where do you sit?
The Benchmark Report
We benchmarked 672 UK retail brands across mobile experience, site speed, search capability and digital stack complexity. The findings provide a clear view of how digital experience across UK retail is actually performing.
Most digital leaders know their roadmap. Fewer know how their digital experience truly compares with the market.
This benchmark provides that baseline - analysing hundreds of retail sites across performance, customer experience and technology footprint to reveal the patterns shaping digital performance across the sector.
Some of the results challenge long-held assumptions about where the biggest gaps really sit.
What the scores reveal
Desktop and mobile perform like two different sites
Across UK retail, desktop scores average 17 points higher than mobile. More than 70% of traffic arrives on phones, where the median page takes 3.8 seconds to render.
Bigger budgets haven’t produced better performance
Retailers with £1B+ revenue average a mobile score of 42. Smaller brands average 48. Research shows every 0.1-second improvement in speed drives an 8.4% uplift in conversions.
Half of UK retail is missing a key conversion driver
Customers who use site search convert two to four times more often than those who browse. Yet 51% of brands have no dedicated search capability.
Tool accumulation affects site performance
Brands running five or more analytics tools average a mobile score of 38. Those running one or two average 48.
The issue isn’t technology, it’s ownership
Top-performing brands run many of the same tools as everyone else. The difference is governance and clear ownership of performance.
Perfect scores don't mean happy customers
Four brands score a perfect 100 on standard mobile testing - and all four fall short when measured against real customer visits. Knowing which test to trust matters.
See where your organisation sits
Your benchmark scorecard shows how your digital experience compares with the rest of the market - and what is influencing that position.
- Your position within your sector
- Mobile performance and customer experience metrics
- The impact of tools, scripts and integrations on performance
- How search capability influences conversion behaviour
- Key drivers affecting performance
- Priority areas for improvement
About the Benchmark Report
The UK Retail Digital Performance Benchmark brings together data from hundreds of retail websites to create a clear view of how digital experience is evolving across the market. The report highlights the structural patterns affecting eCommerce performance and provides a strategic view of where organisations are falling behind - and where the opportunity for improvement lies.