Top 50 online retailers in the UK

This eighth quarterly Hot Shops List is notable for its lack of movement either up or down of the e-retailers it tracks. 

Thirty of the fifty were within three places of their rankings in November and of these, twenty-three were within two places and fifteen were within one position.

The IMRG-Hitwise Hot Shops List:

Notes

The IMRG-Hitwise Hot Shops List excludes eBay and price comparison / aggregator websites such as Kelkoo and Froogle.

IMRG Capgemini Index Classification:  Beer / wine / spirits; Books; CDs / tapes / records; Clothing / footwear / accessories; Computer hardware / peripherals / consumables; Consumer electronics; Digital downloads (e.g. music, software); Flowers; Food, beverages and household supplies; Furniture; Garden / DIY; Health and beauty; Home appliances (e.g. washing machines); Household goods (e.g. kitchenware, bedding); Jewellery / watches; Software; Sporting goods; Tickets (e.g. cinema, theatre, events); Toys; Travel (e.g. flights, holidays, hotels, car hire); Video games; Videos / DVDs.

Analysis

As expected at this time of year, travel companies performed well, with all nine listed improving their rankings.  Thomson Holidays (7) was up six places to jump back into the top ten, while the fastest riser was Thomas Cook (23) up twenty-five spots since November.  Easyjet (11) was up eight places.

The only new entrant was LOVEFiLM, in at 37.

IMRG's CEO, James Roper, comments: "The Hot Shops List gives us a fascinating insight into the big picture of what is going on in e-retail.  For example, at the beginning of 2007 we were astonished to see that half of the UK's top 100 retailers still had no transactional website. 

“But within the past year, a swath of household names have appeared on the List for the first time, including Marks & Spencer, Dixons, Sainsbury's, Boots, Topshop, IKEA, O2, River Island, GAME and Odeon Cinemas.  Having observed the market for a couple of decades, I find the pace at which some retailers are engaging with the internet still seems glacial, but all serious players will be trading online by the end of 2008."

Hitwise's Director of Research, Robin Goad, comments: "Following a somewhat disappointing pre-Christmas period for online retail, the UK experienced a record breaking online sales season that extended into January. UK Internet searches for post-Christmas sales more than tripled this year, and the online properties of high street retailers in particular benefited from this surge in traffic.

“The exception to this rule was Play.com, which received a huge amount of sales traffic and placed higher in the list this year than for the same quarter last year. Other successes included Apple, which reached its highest ever ranking thanks to the publicity surrounding the launch of the Macbook Air, and Thomson Holidays, which received a seasonal boost to become the most visited travel website on the list."

Sources:

www.imrg.org

www.hitwise.co.uk