Multi-channel/e-commerce Movers & Shakers Top 100

Hash Ladha and Ish Patel of Aurora Fashions topped the table in the Retailinsider.com Multi-channel/e-commerce Movers & Shakers Top 100 for 2012, which was again sponsored by K3 Retail.

They are both recognised in the report for driving a raft of changes at the fashion retailer including 90-minute delivery, fulfilment from stores, and replacing fixed tills in-store with iPads.

They were closely followed by Robin Terrell and Andy Harding at House of Fraser, who have also been placed highly because of their commitment to undertaking numerous initiatives at House of Fraser. They are pushing it towards providing a seamless multi-channel experience for its customers.

This year the focus of the report moved from listing individuals at large companies to instead highlighting those people who are having an influence through their innovation - regardless of the size of the organisation employing them.

This led to the top 20 in this year's report containing names from some smaller players who are regarded as   having a growing level of influence as they develop new ways of working that may well be adopted by the larger operators in the near future.

Among them are Richard Weaver and Steve Lewis at Majestic Wines, David Worby at Mywardrobe.com, and Neal Slateford and Richard Longhurst at Lovehoney.

Highlighting the dynamism of multi-channel and e-commerce retailing is the fact that 30% of the names featured in this year's report were not listed in the 2011 version. And those individuals from non-retailers have also made their mark this year as Consultants, Service Providers and Investors make up 20% of the people listed in the 2012 report.

To view this year's Top 100 report click here

If you would prefer a hard-copy of the report then please send your details to glynn@busicomm.co.uk

Finally, if you want to receive all the FREE content posted to Retailinsider.com then simply provide your email at the top right hand side of the site.

Insiders’ view of the world of headhunting

Second part of the regular column – ‘Excerpts from a day in the life of a head-hunter’ working in the leisure/hospitality/retail sectors:

Unfortunately such is the sensitivity of the head-hunting profession that it is rarely possible that the names of the Insiders’ clients can be divulged.

All companies should be looking to the future

8:30am Critical client research project

I was given an interesting research project by a new client who believed it was under attack from other companies in its sector. The commissioned piece of work sought to highlight divisional board level people working at its peers – we’re talking regional MDs and divisional directors. We researched nine rival companies and produced a lengthy document containing 100 names. The client was extremely pleased and during today’s meeting we’ve highlighted the critical 23 people that we now need to speak to. We’ll look to ascertain their packages, salaries, and company share ownerships. The exercise is to ensure the compensation of my client’s top people is in the industry’s upper quartile so they don’t lose any of these great employees. It’s a bit of pre-emptive action and highlights the need to plan for the future when it comes to retaining top people. I’ll be presenting my findings on the selected 23 in a couple of weeks.

11:00am Chief executive meeting about finding new board member

Dived onto a train heading into London for a meeting with the chief executive of a medium-sized business that was arranged by his PA, which often means it is more than just a social catch-up. After a chat about the economy, impact of the Olympics, and a general discussion around the sector, I’m asked – ‘So who is really good out there?’ The next hour is spent talking about who I’ve been talking to, the cultural styles of certain organisations, and the type of person who’d suit a board level appointment in the chief exec’s company. It’s an absolutely fantastic role he’s looking to fill – but then I suppose every role is going to be fantastic for someone. I agreed to meet the chairman in October with a view to starting the search for the new director.

1:00pm Advice sought on suitability of potential candidate

The MD of one of my smallest clients asks me to meet an individual who she’d previously met and to get my opinion of their suitability to joining her company. Culturally they were high potential but the individual would need to undergo an intense learning curve in order to understand the consultancy industry as well as the sector in question. But overall I thought they’d fit and they’ve also got humility in spades so with the right encouragement I reckon they’ll come up to speed. As a third-party I’ve helped negotiate the salary and contributed to setting their expectations. It’s great that they have accepted the job, which is job-done for me.

Good to have a third-party involved

2:30pm Meet executives to understand clients’ culture

Raced across town to north London to meet a senior individual from a retail business after the chief executive had asked me to meet some people within his organisation. The intention was for me to try and better understand the culture of the operation, which would help me with any future placements that I’m engaged on. With such tasks you have to ensure that people do not get the wrong impression and falsely believe that management has lost confidence in their abilities. Thankfully, mission accomplished.

4:00pm Travel back to the office

Leave London and head back to write the ‘pitch’ for the piece of research I presented to the client at 8:30 this morning. The pitch to the 23 individuals on my list will need to sound credible otherwise they’ll not want to speak to me and they certainly won’t be willing to discuss their salaries and future plans. I prefer to write such pitches down first as it helps avoid any ‘umms’ and ‘ahhs’ that would reduce my chances of success.

Sponsored column by Nigel Sapsed, director of executive search specialist Sapsed Stevens

Guest slot - Steve Pearce of Green Room

So what exactly can physical stores learn from online retail? There is no doubt that the internet has fundamentally affected the role of stores within the retail mix. McKinsey reveals that in 2012 digital media has influenced 50% of UK in-store purchases – and this could rise to 80% by 2015. To adapt, stores must become multichannel experiential and social hubs.

Continued merging of online and physical world

When creating strategic platforms or concept designs we brainstorm how others might approach them. How would Facebook design a charity shop? How would PayPal run a retail bank? And online stores such as ASOS, Ocado, Amazon and Shoesofprey.com succeed not just because of pricing and convenience, but also because of innovation and relevance.

A big challenge is space – especially for smaller stores. These need to become editors. What we crave are curators, like GQ magazine or Wallpaper* City Guides, who make choices easier. A glance at Notonthehighstreet.com or MrPorter.com shows personalised ideas, cross-merchandising, ranges, assistance and relevant content links. In-store pop-up spaces can answer this, showcasing designers, experts, events, promotions and more.

Websites like Medwinds.com or Howies.co.uk tell compelling product stories. Who designed it? Where was it made? What can you do with it? Accompanied by aspirational images and customer comments, it’s more inspiring than simply products on shelves – so we should embrace storytelling too, perhaps through augmented reality. Our Citroen DS3 project at Westfield taught us that customer interaction via personal devices creates rich dialogue, without massive hardware costs.

The internet has given shoppers the ability to learn, browse and purchase 24/7. Storefronts should now do this, with extended interactivity through access to rich content, such as touchscreens and vending machines.

Speed and convenience are also vital. The checkout queue is often frustrating, so a more fluid process, such as staff carrying mobile payment devices or the adoption of PayPal’s InStore app, can create quicker, more pleasant experiences. 

Liking, Tweeting and sharing are vital, as shown by Italian sneaker brand Superga’s great instagram-based dialogue with customers on Facebook. Bringing this into a physical space, we should invest in WiFi and social media, and encourage leisure time in-store through competitions, interaction points and product-focused multimedia content.

For example, C&A clothes hangers in Brazil, with counters revealing how many Likes each garment has had, RNKD’s US customers are rewarded for uploading photos of items in their closet, and Vancl customers can set up personal stores, upload photos of themselves wearing Vancl products and earn 10% of sales from their pages.

Technology, recession, the rise of supermarkets, the role of the high street, and how we interact with brands and retailers have created a melting pot of threats and opportunities. Those that embrace the above principles will be well placed to tackle them.

Steve Pearce is client services director at Green Room

The latest thinking on disruptive retail trends

‘Big Data’ is the buzz term and there is no doubt that retailers are awash with data. And the mountains that they are currently dealing with are only set to grow as retailers begin to grapple with information thrown off mobile devices and location-based applications.

Don't be drowned by data.

The big problem with big data is that the established retailers are not taking advantage of its potential value, whereas in contrast smaller start-ups are growing up within a data-rich culture and are gaining great insight from the information.

Ahead of chairing a session at the forthcoming WorldRetail Congress 2012 on ‘Learning from the new “retail-preneurs”’ Dharmash Mistry, partner at Balderton Capital and non-executive director at Dixons Retail, ran Retailinsider.com through his thinking on big data and other technology trends in the retail sector.

“Start-ups are using data well. But you need algorithms and Phd scientists to analyse it. It requires an investment in high capability mathematicians and I’m not sure [established] retailers have been willing to make that investment. But it is a big opportunity because great analysis will be a competitive advantage,” he says.

He cites the flash Sales sites such as Vente-privee.com, Gilte Groupe and Achica as undertaking lots of data analysis, which is leading to improved final conversion rates. This is enabling them to market to an individual and to then track at such a level of detail that they can reduce costs and improve overall productivity of their businesses.

“It [big data] comes with the requirements for talent but it’s needed if you believe in big data and personalisation. Start-ups are benefiting as they are beginning with a clean sheet of paper,” says Mistry whose business Balderton is one of the UK’s most influential early stage investors having done deals with the likes of LoveFilm, Betfair, Yoox Group, Achica, Worldstores, and The Hut Group.

Easy.

Mistry sees further potentially disruptive forces to the retail sector from the likes of direct-from-manufacturer businesses including Shoes of Prey – that enables customers to design their own unique footwear – Bathrooms.com, and in Germany Urbanara.

The secret of their success is that they are selling own label goods in categories where often “nobody really knows the brands in these categories, unlike in say fashion”.

What an increasing number of sites have been delivering as part of their models is a high level of editorial that is successfully blending media and retail. Particular examples include Net-A-Porter and Asos along with the flash Sale sites.

Whereas Mistry says magazines were the navigational tools that took customers towards purchases, the digital world has meant that there is now a very fine line between navigation and buying. And many online merchants are taking advantage of this blurring.

He also points to the growth in marketplaces – over and above eBay and Rakuten – where two trends are prevailing. Firstly, there is a ‘verticalising’ taking place with the emergence of the likes of Airbnb, which brings together apartment owners who have rooms for rental and travellers, and also the various car rental propositions that have sprung up.

Secondly, there is growth in the number of platforms giving small producers access to mass audiences, with examples including Tesco and Asos.

The other potentially revolutionary business that interests Mistry is Pinterest. “It’s a visual wish-list of products where the click through to purchase is high as people are pinning up products they want. It’s potentially more valuable [to retailers] than Facebook as it is curated by people you trust and who are your friends,” he suggests.

Innovative Retailers - Thornton's Budgens

Brought to you by Retailinsider.com and PCMS

The Name: Thornton’s Budgens

The Place: Crouch End, London N8 and Belsize Park, London NW3

The Story: Thornton’s Budgens is in this column for two reasons. Firstly its quest to have the lowest carbon footprint of any existing supermarket in the world, which has all sorts of people turning up and making notes, and secondly its totally uncanny ability to generate large amounts of publicity for just about anything it does. Like eating squirrels.

The Thornton in Thornton's Budgens.

Please. It’s a bit early for all this isn’t it? Never too early for the manager of Crouch End’s Budgens Andrew Thornton to have a good idea. People fell over themselves to get there when the national press announced squirrel meat ‘sustainable and delicious’ was on sale at a certain north London supermarket in 2010.

The grey variety, I hope Mr T? Mais oui. And after that we had the ‘Box of Hope’, which you can still buy. Tapping into the idea that we need to see something concrete for our charitable donations you put a wooden box in your shopping trolley and give it to the cashier who adds a £1 donation to Dementia Research to your bill. Columnists had another field day.

Box of Hope: What all retailers need right now.

Who has these super ideas? Well, they come from all over the place. Andrew Thornton describes himself as an innovator and a creator. There is no PR agency – he is it. But they also get approached as it is known that they are open to ideas of all kinds. Customers, suppliers – they’ll take a good wheeze from anyone. Although Thornton is bemused that the idea of a poet laureate for the store never really got taken up by those fickle journos. But never mind about that because in a couple of weeks you can eat your dinner up on the roof of Thornton’s Budgens.

It’s an ideas whirlwind. Kindly explain: Thornton is also the co-creator of ‘Food From The Sky’ so beloved by Bozza (that’s London Mayor Boris Johnson for non-Londoners). He has allowed the roof of his store to be taken over by a sustainable, roof top allotment scenario and they are holding a harvest supper and auction up there. I’m telling you this shop is a legend in its own lunchtime.

I can see. So what’s the effect on sales? Thornton says you cannot link ideas to sales generation particularly. They simply do these things because they care. Retail consultancy him! has allegedly described Crouch End as the most competitive food retail high street in the UK. Tesco is next door, Waitrose two doors down, M&S nearby, loads of local independents too – so getting a slice of the ever decreasing customer budget is key however you do it. But in affluent Crouch End sustainable and local is what makes them tick and this is where the Budgens franchising business model comes into its own. But first I must just tell you about ‘Made in London’.

Go right ahead: A whole section of Thornton’s Budgens food is exactly that – Made in London - and 13 of his suppliers are located in the borough of Haringey. At least three food companies have started with help from this shop and the ‘Stall for All’, which is always outside the shop, showcases some of these cottage industries who hope to go mainstream. A good example is Stewed! that started out in Alexandra Palace farmers’ market and asked Thornton’s Budgens for help. He stocked the stuff, and now you can get it all over the place. Another food empire is born.

Nuff said. Back to franchising: Budgens is family owned by the Musgrave Group of Irish stock, as is Thornton. He claims that the Irish independent retail sector was/is of a far higher quality than in the UK. When Musgrave Group bought Budgens it was around 200 stores in a ‘command and control’ chain. They immediately sought out franchisees like Thornton and now around 120 of them are fully independent. Incidentally Thornton himself is not at all interested in gaining any more leases than the two he already has. In fact, he struggles slightly with the idea of a community retailer having any more than one shop saying he’d be ‘just a store manager then’.

Budgens' model working well in Crouch End.

So the future according to Thornton is? Definitely the community-based franchise model. Fairly new to the UK as opposed to Ireland, but people are disillusioned with big chains and if shops cannot compete on price they can major on personalisation, service and local food. Tesco ‘did everyone a favour’ by buying One Stop thereby forcing an improvement in the quality of the UK independent sector with a kick up the…

Quite. Tell me about the green stuff: Hold on to your hats. The Belsize Park store has LED lighting throughout, using 10% of normal energy levels, but with no discernible effect on shoppers. People said it couldn’t be done. Only 6% of their waste goes to landfill. For a supermarket they are saintly, I’m telling you. And they put fridge doors onto chiller cabinets despite this being obviously a no-no.

Err is it? No. But people screamed that customers would not open doors to get yogurt. It is a barrier to purchase. Calm down dear, said Thornton’s Budgens, we’re doing it anyway. And lo, and behold the people of Crouch End managed to open the door and close it again. Since then Thornton has showed certain other large retailers around to show them how it works. Evidence that this is an ethical thing, not a sales advantage thing.

So, what tips for anyone who wants to follow in the Thornton’s Budgens footsteps? If you are big then plan to open a shop in an area of early adopters, and if you are small then concentrate on community. The beauty of the Thornton’s shops is that they have managed to do both.

PCMS Group is a leading independent supplier of software and services to the retail industry; PCMS Store and Multi-channel solutions have been chosen by over 98 retailers including Arcadia, John Lewis and M&S. 

Movers & Shakers Q&A with Richard Weaver

Brought to you by Retailinsider.com and K3 Retail

Richard Weaver, e-commerce director, Majestic Wine

1. What is the greatest opportunity for your business?

We have the potential to expand our business considerably, and online is a key aspect of this. Online retail provides cost effective forms of marketing to both reach new customers and retain existing ones through greater engagement. At Majestic we’re 12 years into online sales but still finding new ways to reach customers at a faster pace than ever.

2. What is the biggest challenge to your business?

Our biggest challenge is scaling our operation without losing our strengths. In terms of online, that means customer service and delivery – as it does for most online businesses. We need to maintain the personality of our service and our standards as we carry out more deliveries and serve more customers. In this sense I’m grateful that at Majestic we are less reliant on external parcel carriers than many retailers. In the UK I think our retailers are under-served by the carrier market.

3. With the benefit of hindsight what would you have done differently so far?

I slightly underestimated the speed at which mobile commerce would take off. For medium-sized retailers it’s all about viability, the tipping point at which the additional investment required to set up a mobile channel is offset by the benefits and I waited a little too long and allowed others to be the first movers.

4. What is the future of the physical store?

In our industry we’ve already seen great changes in the nature of physical retail, as much in response to the power of supermarkets as to the growth of the web. I believe that while online shopping has altered paradigms, retailers can continue to prosper with physical stores. They need to adapt and focus on the things that don’t work so well online, such as personal service and immediate access to stock. Click-and-collect is a good example of multichannel working for physical retailers.

5. What will the high street look like in a decade?

There are existing trends in the evolution of the high street that I can only see continuing as business models less suited to the modern retail landscape disappear. In particular, we’ll continue to see the growth of services at the expense of traditional retail. I’d like to think that we’ll also see localised specialist and niche retailers succeed, but I’m concerned this can’t and won’t work everywhere.

6. Will mobile devices be the primary sales channel in the future?

In some verticals, yes, mobile will take over – smaller, convenience purchases like cinema tickets or downloaded media are ideally suited to mobile commerce. More researched purchases benefit from more screen real estate though. It depends on how you define 'mobile' really, because tablets are awkward in this mobile versus non-mobile definition and in many ways they combine the best of both. If there’s a potential issue for the growth of the mobile channel it’s that we need to settle on standards for mobile payments. I’m concerned that there are a lot of fledgling options and it will take time for these to shake out.

7. What other retail business do you admire?

I ask this question of everyone I interview and 90% of the time I hear either Amazon or Asos, and rightly so. Both these businesses have built complex and successful operations on an international scale that make excellent use of technology, yet at heart they stick to good old-fashioned retail fundamentals: product, price and service.

8. If you hadn't been a retailer what would you have liked to do?

Like a lot of people in the wine trade I’m a foodie at heart so anything to do with good food would suit me very well. I’m quite jealous of the Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall or Alex James tactic of moving to the country and cooking or making cheese.

9. What marks out of 10 do you give yourself so far for achievement?

That’s an awful question to answer in public as I’m my own worst critic but equally I’m very proud of what we’ve achieved at Majestic and the role I’ve played in that. I’ll hedge my bets and say eight.

10. Who would you place in the Top 20 Multi-channel/e-commerce Movers & Shakers?

I’d nominate James Hart at ASOS for combining scale with innovation, and for doing so having grown the business from the start. I also like what Tom Allason is doing with Shutl - online fulfilment needs some disruption.

Waste - far from a waste of time

The retail industry, aided by consumers, has a shocking record of food waste. Far too much good food is thrown away - because of a combination of retailers having to comply with over-zealous food regulations, and an element of laziness when looking at alternative ways of dealing with the problem.

As for consumers, they have a fixation with not consuming foods that are just a day over their sell-by-date and for not buying goods that have scratched or dented packaging even when it is clear that in no way can it have affected the contents.

Thankfully there are exceptions among retailers. Take Thornton's Budgens with stores in North London's Crouch End and Belsize Park. The business is run by one-man PR machine Andrew Thornton who has engaged in numerous activities that have helped his business stand out from the crowd.

But underlying his media-savvy persona is an objective of creating a sustainable business model and integral to this is his aim of completely eradicating food waste. To this end he is experimenting with many waste-saving activities including employing a chef.

This is a first in the UK (adopting a similar strategy as that employed at the People's Supermarket where Thornton was a co-founder). You'll see the chef wandering around the Crouch End store collecting food that has hit its sell-by-date, and from this he creates appetising dishes that are then sold on the deli counter.

Apparently the employment of chefs is more common in the US but has yet to be adopted in the UK. Although this move has a financial gain Thornton says it goes well beyond money as he regards food waste as "obscene".

Any food that cannot be sold or used by the chef is passed on to FoodCycle and various charities for the homeless. With meats Thornton will freeze them before handing them over as this then gives them an elongated shelf life for the receiving charity.

Garden in the sky at Crouch End 

For inedible vegetables - or mulch - this is utilised on the roof of the Crouch End store as part of the cultivation of the 'Food from the Sky' initiative that involves growing various foodstuff on the rooftop garden. Every Friday the newest crops are delivered to the shop floor to be snapped up by quickly by eager shoppers.

Although Thornton says it is still an aspiration to have zero going into the stores' bins, there is arguably no food store in the country that is doing as much to reduce its levels of food waste.

You will be able to read more about Thornton and his interesting way of running his two Budgens stores later this week when a profile will run on Retailinsider.com.

Retail Species - the pioneer

The Person: Julia Stafford

The Company: The Wine Pantry

The Job Title: Director

The Story: There she was just minding her own business, working in the City on the legal shipping side of the oil and gas industry, dealing with liability and pollution claims. And just when it all seems settled your honour she winds up running a niche wine company out of a tiny unit in Borough Market. She enjoyed what she did but felt very distant from any end product and some instinct to sell to the great British public made itself felt.

Niche? It only sells English wine.

Now, is that wise? Careful. Stafford will have your eyes out. But you won’t be the first to doubt the viability of a shop that only sells British wine. Her own potential backers actually weren’t too enamoured with the idea but she is a stubborn so and so and she and her boyfriend invested their own money instead because they were told ‘it wasn’t possible’. They took a unit in Borough Market so small that no one knew what to do with it.

Well, that should suit English wines because there can’t be that many of them are there? This just shows once again that you know nothing.  This tiny unit stocks 85 different wines and also houses a sampling machine. The unit is emphatically run as a tasting room – ‘a mouthpiece’ for English wine – not as a bar. Customers buy 125ml glasses for £4.50 but you cannot buy a bottle and drink it on one of the tiny tables.  In fact the tables shouldn’t even be there….

And why not? It’s all part of the rich tapestry of retail that Julia Stafford is coming to terms with. Learning as she goes, she is still in a ‘teething’ stage. No one on Stoney  Street  is supposed to have tables or chairs outside but everyone does and blind eyes are turned. But cometh the Olympics, cometh the Council so they all had to go. Not good for a sampling wine business with a unit as small as a postage stamp. Still, the tables are back now.

Seriously now, you can’t build an empire on a unit this small. Stafford is well aware of the limitations of the site. Retail Insider found her still reeling from the news that a unit she had her eye on for two years on Marylebone High Street had just been given to another wine retailer.

Why? One guess. You cannot run a shop that sells only English wine.

 I’m sensing a theme here. Possibly, but actually the English wine is only part of Stafford’s vision. The end game is a one-stop-shop for all British produce. No one would think anything of it if it were a shop selling only Italian produce so get patriotic.

First things first, how does the wine shop model stack up? The online side of things is minimal as are telephone orders. In contrast, wholesale sales are a big proportion of sales and Stafford works closely with lots of the restaurants in Borough Market. She does quite a lot of charity do’s where she sells the wine at trade price – getting the name out there, and of course there is the walk-in trade from the market. A lot of the success of this retailer is based on the personality of Stafford herself.

How so? She will try anything – it is a constantly evolving business. If you propose doing a wedding list of wine she’ll give it a go. If you propose a corporate tasting event for your top City firm she will give it a go. Hampers she is thinking about. Saying ‘no’ is not something she finds easy because there is always this desire to show off the wine that she is passionate about.  60% of English wine she reckons is very commercial, the remaining share you need to advise people about.

Wine Pantry: No bigger than a pantry.

Hmm, now just wondering how expansion will work with the money men. Are they a bit dubious? SEIS approval has just been sorted and the investors in the business are now private after the bank wussed out of supporting the wine part of the Stafford vision. Having said that she urgently needs a larger unit and the couple of employees The Wine Pantry employs need space for office functions  and wine storage. On the other hand her whole retail focus is on service and she definitely does not want to expand too quickly. Her ideal is to combine the organisational coherence of an office where everyone has a role with the service levels of a shop.

Best of British to her. Tell me more about Marylebone High Street? Definitely a temporary blow but she is not a gal to keep down for long. There is another unit of interest on the road although it is smaller and she would still have to get additional storage. But it could be a ‘blessing in disguise’ as it is obviously cheaper too.

Surely they will need more staff soon? For sure, as she points out ‘one person can run a shop,  but you need more people to run a business.’ And she doesn’t have enough time for marketing and advertising as it is. She’s even had to defer her Masters.

Wait, don’t tell me she is trying to study as well as everything else! She’s driven, her father’s Greek, they build empires over there. What can I tell you! Either way, with only one month to go to complete her thesis she has put it off for a year. Just so you know… it’s an MSc in Business and the Environment focusing on supply chains and local producers.

Very relevant. It certainly is. The big boy English vineyards like Chapel Down and Nyetimber provide the vast majority of English wine on sale. Small vineyards just can’t make enough to interest the supermarkets and 2012 is going to be a dire year for English grapes so expect trouble at t’mill.

Oh dear. Don’t worry. I have a feeling Julia Stafford will change the scene once someone has the sense to give the woman a shop.

Spar and Aldi top Drinks Retail Websites Table

Brought to you by Retailinsider.com and Cookie Reports

Spar (UK) made a return to form by jointly topping the table of the Top 25 UK’s leading drinks retailing websites for August, although it was helped by Aldi delivering a weaker performance this month.

The German supermarket chain managed to score 7.62 out of 10 compared with its impressive 8.34 of last month. This modest bit of movement at the top sits well with the rest of the table that has enjoyed a period of stability as 10 retailers are holding the same position as last month – compared with only two previously.

The top 10 was especially consistent in its performance as six merchants are holding the same spots, 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.

The other changes among the top grouping were the climb of one place by Iceland into eighth spot, and the decline of two places by Naked Wines into 10^th spot, which followed its impressive rise of 14 places last month.

The biggest gainer was Tesco that climbed three places into 16^th spot with a score of 3.10, which is a marginal gain on the 2.90 it scored last month, which suggests the scoring at the bottom end of the table was lower than in July.

The biggest faller was EH Booth that slipped four places to 15^th spot with a score of 3.56 out of 10. It was just beaten by Londis that returned to the table having been excluded from testing in July.

Disappointingly one retailer was still excluded from the Sitemorse testing, with Sainsbury’s again not included in the Top 25 table because of its reliance on JavaScript.

Other fallers this month included heavyweights Marks & Spencer, which declined four places to 20^th spot, and Waitrose, slipped two places to 23^rd spot. It managed to beat only one operator, the Sunday Times Wine Club, which scored 1.79 out of 10, which is exactly the same poor score that it achieved in July.

Top 25 Drinks Retail Websites – Aug 2012

Company Name                      +/-       Score out of 10

1.      Spar (UK)                     +1        7.62

2.      Aldi                              same   7.62    

3.      The Whisky Shop         same   6.74

4.      Fortnum & Mason       same   6.24

5.      Budgens                      same   6.22

6.      Bargain Booze             same   6.12

7.      Lidl                              same   5.19

8.      Iceland                         +1        5.10

9.      Londis                          new     5.10

10.  Naked Wines               -2         4.90

11.  The Wine Society        +1        4.10

12.  BeerMerchants.com   +1        3.96                

13.  Majestic Wine             +2        3.84

14.  The Drink Shop            same   3.77

15.  EH Booth & Co           -5         3.56

16.  Tesco                           +3        3.10

17.  Selfridges                    same   3.10

18.  Asda                            +2        3.10

19.  Slurp.co.uk                  -1         3.04

20.  Marks & Spencer        -4         2.94

21.  Virgin Wines               +2        2.76

22.  Laithwaites                  same   2.04

23.  Waitrose                     -2         1.86

24.  Sun Times Wine Club  same   1.79

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