Aldi leaps up table to fight it out with Lidl among top performing drinks websites in November
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The big grocery discounters are battling it out to deliver the best online drinks experience, with Aldi pushing rival Lidl out of the top five in the table of the best performing drinks retailers’ websites, according to tests conducted on the online stores of the top 25 UK drinks sellers in November.
Aldi jumped eight places to take fifth spot with a score of 5.04 out of 10, which compares with its score of 3.60 the previous month. In doing so it pushed Lidl into sixth spot – with its score of 4.95 – in what is proving to be an interesting battle as both discounters value highly their drinks offerings.
Lidl has just been named the best supermarket for wine in a study by the Wotwine app that found it provides the best value – with two-thirds of its wines representing ‘value’ or ‘extra value’. Aldi came a close second in the survey of over 4,000 wines. Lidl has also been using social media to promote the category.
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.
Despite their best efforts neither discounter could topple Bargain Booze that once again held on to the top spot in the table, with an impressive score of 7.92 – the same as in October – that places it some way in front of second-placed Budgens that scored 6.08. Budgens moved up one place along with Fortnum & Mason who both pushed The Whisky Shop into fourth spot.
Other big mover this month are Selfridges that climbed seven places to 16th spot and Marks & Spencer, which rose five places to 12th spot. It contributed to the fall of three places by Majestic Wine, which ended its three-month consecutive run up the table. This comes at a time when the retailer has been extending the level of personalisation on its site through using technology from SDL.
Also falling this month is The Drink Shop that slipped a hefty eight places to 20th spot with a score of 2.89 compared with 3.61 in October. This still places it above Naked Wines that dropped three places to position it at the bottom of the table with its score of only 1.62. It replaces Laithwaites that moved up two places.
These moves came against a strong backdrop of online sales, with year-on-year growth of 14% for October, according to the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index. The beer, wines and spirits category performed particularly well again as it delivered an uplift of 19%.
Londis was yet again excluded from the Sitemorse testing this month because of its reliance on JavaScript.
Top UK Drinks Retail Websites – November 2014
Company Name +/- Score out of 10
Bargain Booze same 7.92
Budgens +1 6.08
Fortnum & Mason +1 5.72
The Whisky Shop -2 5.48
Aldi +8 5.04
Lidl -1 4.95
EH Booth & Co -1 4.92
Spar (UK) -1 4.85
The Wine Society -1 4.20
BeerMerchants.com -1 4.06
Iceland same 3.86
Marks & Spencer +5 3.40
Majestic Wine -3 3.40
Morrisons same 3.38
Tesco same 3.20
Selfridges +7 3.20
Sainsbury’s -1 3.14
Slurp.co.uk same 3.14
Waitrose Cellar +1 3.14
The Drink Shop -8 2.89
Virgin Wines -2 2.58
Asda -1 2.40
Laithwaites +2 1.88
Sun Times Wine Club same 1.63
Naked Wines -3 1.62
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