John Lewis ranked number one UK retailer for mobile commerce

Department store chain John Lewis has topped the EPiServer league table for the best mobile shopping experience with a benchmark score of 75 percent to outperform the likes of Amazon, Debenhams and Marks & Spencer. The Mobile Commerce 2014 report, published by EPiServer revealed

that John Lewis demonstrated a “consistently good mobile strategy across its Android and iOS apps, and mobile site” to offer the best consumer mobile shopping experience.

The annual survey of the UK’s top 20 retailers, selected from the IMRG Experian Hitwise Hot Shops list, is now in its third year and revealed that many retailers are

struggling to deliver the sophisticated and friction free mobile commerce experience that consumers now expect, reflected by an average score of 47 percent, compared to 55 percent in 2013.

The EPiServer study asked 1,000 UK mobile users to score retailers across its mobile sites, as well as Android and iOS apps, and how they performed on both smartphones and tablets. The criteria, updated for 2014 to reflect the evolving demands of consumers, including whether the retailer featured location-based tools, had omnichannel experiences such as ‘click and collect’, offered a direct line to contact customer services, as well as featuring personalised content and social follows and sharing.

John Lewis named best retailer in Mobile Commerce 2014 report

John Lewis topped the retailer table with 75 percent, as its app delivered a “smooth experience” that reflected the main site and its branding, and it was praised for offered its customers features including ‘double tap to zoom’ on product images, barcode scanner and a location-enabled store finder.

The department store was closely followed by Argos in the report, who achieve a score of 72 percent, in third place was Amazon UK with 71 percent. While John Lewis competitor Debenhams fell four places in the report to fifth spot with 69 percent. Other retailers that performed well against the new criteria included Tesco with 67 percent, Your M&S with 65 percent and Next, who achieved a score of 60 percent.

The new scoring criteria asked retailers to do much more than get the basics right, which led to retailers scoring lower in 2014 compared to last year. David Bowen, commerce product manager at EPiServer explained: “Smartphone and tablet ownership is increasing and retailers face a big challenge in meeting the rising expectations of this growing group of mobile-savvy consumers. Consumers are used to shopping via their mobile devices and expect their experience to transcend to other channels.

“The top performing retailers in 2014 are meeting these demands, offering added value features that mix clicks with bricks, personalised content and a consistent, quality experience to every user regardless of the device and platform.”

The report also revealed that Android represents 44 percent of the smartphone market, with iOS for the iPhone following at 38 percent, and Blackberry and Windows making up 8 percent and 7 percent respectively. It also noted that Windows users were most likely to make a purchase via a mobile website on tablet, with 63 percent doing so at least monthly.

Image: John Lewis app