Burberry ‘leading the way for mobile commerce’

Written by Anthony Strzalek

19/09/2017

Burberry has been named the top mobile website among UK High Street retailers, according to the latest Ampersand report.

The mobile e-commerce benchmarking and consumer research revealed however that retailers still have a long way to go to meet consumer expectations on mobile, but fashion retailers are continuing to lead the way.

The report, which compares and ranks High Street retailers by mobile website features and usability, saw Burberry come out on top with Oasis, Warehouse, House of Fraser and Karen Millen making up the top five. Other High Street retailers including Boots and B&Q made the top ten.

The five lowest scoring mobile retail websites were Laithwaites, Kiddicare, Dunnes Stores, Nespresso UK and Jessops. Meanwhile, the most improved included Liberty, Miu Miu, Craghoppers, Links of London and Asics.

Scoring looked at criteria including touch payments, mobile page speed, geolocation, placement of primary store locator link, usability of mobile web forms, faceted navigation, product zoom, whether a retailer offers in-store stock check from its mobile website, and availability of features that allow for completion of tasks later – such as wishlisting and saving baskets.

As part of its latest research, Ampersand also partnered with YouGov to conduct an online consumer survey to learn how consumers use their smartphones for different shopping-related tasks.

The research found that 53 per cent of smartphone owners having bought a product on a mobile device, up 20 per cent from 2015. More than half (56 per cent) also researched a product with the intent to buy later in-store (up 19 per cent).

Additionally, 44 per cent of respondents made a purchase on a mobile at least once a month, a nine per cent increase on 2015’s figure.

Darryl Adie, managing director of Ampersand, said: “The mobile channel is continuing to grow. Last year it was reported that mobile internet usage had finally surpassed that of desktop. Simple improvements can have a big, positive impact. Retailers not optimising their mobile websites in ways that matter to consumers are most certainly missing out on sales.”