Whisky Shop and Spar battle it out among top drinks retail sites

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The Whisky Shop has again taken the title of the best performing drinks retail website edging out its long-standing rival Spar (UK) that falls into second place in the table of the UK’s Leading drinks retailing websites for June.

This caps a very active month among the major drinks sites as unusually only one company held the same position as last month, with Fortnum & Mason retaining its fourth spot. Among the big movers was EH Booth that slipped six places into 13th spot and Tesco, which moved up four places into 14thspot.

It was another good month for Naked Wines that climbed two places into 17th spot, after its jump of five positions in May that took it off the bottom spot, according to the rankingsof the top UK drinks retailers’ websites 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.

A newcomer this month, Morrisons Cellar, performed to an average level with its score of 3.22 that puts it in the middle-ranking position of 15th in the table. However, compared with other major supermarkets it does reasonably well. Tesco sits just one place above it, whereas Marks & Spencer, Asda and Waitrose all sit in more lowly positions.

Better performers among the big grocers are the discounters: Aldi sits in fifth place with a score of 4.94 just ahead of rival Lidl that is one place behind it with a score of 4.41 having moved up three places this month.

Two retailers were excluded from the Sitemorse testing this month, with Sainsbury’s yet again not included in the table because of its continued reliance on JavaScript. It was joined this month by Londis.

Top UK Drinks Retail Websites – June 2013

Company Name                      +/-       Score out of 10

            The Whisky Shop         +1        7.10

            Spar (UK)                     -1         7.08

            Bargain Booze             +3        5.76

            Fortnum & Mason       same   5.62

            Aldi                              -2         4.94    

            Lidl                              +3        4.41

            Iceland                         +3        4.38

            Budgens                      -3         4.28

            BeerMerchants.com   +3        4.22                

            The Wine Society        +1        4.10

            Majestic Wine             +3        3.86

            The Drink Shop            +3        3.51

            EH Booth & Co            -6         3.30

            Tesco                           +4        3.28

            Morrisons Cellar         new     3.22

            Marks & Spencer        -3         3.14

            Naked Wines               +2        2.96

      Slurp.co.uk                    -2         2.78

            Laithwaites                  -2         2.60

            Asda                            +2        2.50

            Waitrose                     -1         2.38

            Sun Times Wine Club  -1         2.24

            Selfridges                    +1        2.04

            Virgin Wines                -1         1.52

             
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