Top 25 Drinks Retail Websites for June

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Supermarket EH Booth rose dramatically up the table of the Top 25 UK’s leading drinks retailing websites in June as it grabbed a top five spot that better reflects its position as one of the best multiple retailers of drinks in the country.

It moved up 15 places to fifth spot as it doubled its score to 6 out of 10, according to the monthly table of UK websites for drinks retailers, produced exclusively for Retailinsider.com by website testing specialist Sitemorse.

To produce the rankings Sitemorse runs automated software that page-by-page reads the first 125 pages of each website and analyses on the basis of six key criteria - function, code quality, user experience, accessibility, performance and SEO capability.

Ahead of EH Booth there was a change at the top of the table as The Whisky Shop moved up one place with a score of 7.10 to push Spar (UK) into second place with its 6.72, which is a dip from the 7.26 it achieved last month.

It has been a turbulent month for the drinks websites as only two of the top 25 remain in the same position as they did in May – these being Majestic Wine and Waitrose – which compares with the seven non-movers previously. After EH Booth, the biggest mover this month is Naked Wines that fell eight places into 22^nd spot to push it into the bottom five.

It sits alongside some very big names in the bottom half of the table as Tesco, Asda, Marks & Spencer and Waitrose all scored rather poorly within the tight 2.60 to 3.30 band that is a long way from the score of 7 out of 10 that Sitemorse regards as a credible score that all retailers should aim for.

However, these players still delivered a better performance than some specialist drinks retailers including the bottom five – Virgin Wines, Naked Wines, Slurp, Laithwaites and Sunday Times Wine Club.  

This is rather a sad state of affairs as these operators should arguably be delivering the best performance as drinks is their specialist area and most of them do not have stores so they are wholly reliant on their websites and mail order businesses to generate revenues.

Despite its still lowly position in 23^rd spot Slurp has made some progress this month as it moves up two places to take it off the bottom slot. It has also been active with innovations as it recently launched a Daily Deals service that feature video tasting notes.

Overall, it has been a good recent period for online drinks retailing, according to the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index, which reported a healthy 12% month-on-month increase in sales for the Beers, Wine and Spirits category in May. The Bank Holiday in the early part of the month and the Jubilee celebrations were seen as likely key drivers in this uplift.

Top 25 Drinks Retail Websites – June 2012

Company Name                      +/-       Score out of 10

1.      The Whisky Shop         +1        7.10

2.      Spar (UK)                     -1         6.72

3.      Fortnum & Mason       +1        6.24

4.      Budgens                      +1        6.22

5.      EH Booth & Co          +14      6.00

6.      Aldi                              -3         5.80    

7.      Bargain Booze             -1         5.56

8.      Iceland                         +1        5.30

9.      Lidl                              -2         5.19

10.  The Wine Society        -2         5.18

11.  Londis                          -1         4.38

12.  BeerMerchants.com   -1         4.22                

13.  Majestic Wine             same   3.84

14.  Sainsbury’s                  -2         3.76

15.  The Drink Shop            +1        3.51

16.  Tesco                           +1        3.28

17.  Selfridges                    +1        3.10

18.  Asda                            -3         2.90

19.  Marks & Spencer        +2        2.58

20.  Waitrose                     same   2.58

21.  Virgin Wines               +1        2.50

22.  Naked Wines               - 8        2.40

23.  Slurp.co.uk                  +2        2.16

24.  Laithwaites                  -1         2..4

25.  Sun Times Wine Club  -1         1.79

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