Topshop crowned best website for tablet shopping

Fashion chain Topshop has been named the best site for the increasing trend of consumers using a tablet to do their shopping in a fashion retail study conducted by Quisma. The research focused on the customer experience on tablet devices,

looking at the overall performance as well as four key areas – the homepage, product detail page, shopping basket and checkout and was rated on structure, display, usability and specific content. Each brand was awarded a score out of 100 percent.

Topshop came out on top, scoring 86.89 percent across all categories, and was praised for its easy-to-use search bar, login function and shopping basket on its mobile site. Quisma also found that the retailer scored equally as well when it came to display, through the fact it tailors its content and promotional campaigns and teasers to visitors, which encourages potential customers to buy.

The only point of criticism with Topshop’s homepage is that there are no trust elements, however Quisma found that when it comes to specific content, Topshop “ticks all the boxes”, and its advertising campaigns offer customers a good portal into the site.

Topshop praised for user-friendly tablet website

Sportswear giants Adidas and Nike followed Topshop, both scored highly when assessed for ease of use on its mobile site for busy shoppers. They were followed by New Look, Lacoste, Hugo Boss and Asos, each were only praised for certain aspects of their sites, for instance e-tailer Asos was praised for its usability and its display, as well as its shopping basket, which was noted as being “exemplary”.

At the lower end of the scale, designer fashion label Ralph Lauren, Inditex’s Zara and H&M performed poorly, with the Swedish retail chain scoring less than 70 percent in each category.

Zara in particular was criticised for its overall structure and display, due to the fact that information such as the print function, terms and condition, data protection notice and trust elements were all missing. However, the main problem the report highlighted was its usability as the site does not seem to have any mobile options, something which most tablet users have come to expect, and the size of the homepage buttons make it difficult to use on a tablet.

The checkout process, the final step consumers go through before buying products was highlighted as a problem area, with the study revealing that around one-third of the retailers involved failed “quite badly”, and considering this is where many visitors drop out the report suggests that all retailers should aid shoppers doubt by placing trust elements, like having a call-to-action button close at hand, which could encourage customers to buy and help to stop them getting cold feet.

Explaining why retailers must look at their tablet offering, Quisma’s UK managing director, Ellie Edwards-Scott, said: “No other technology has had as much influence on e-commerce in recent times as tablet devices and research from the IMRG found that tablet devices now account for 85 percent of mobile sales year-to-date.

“Tablet visitors to e-commerce sites also spend 20 percent more than desktop shoppers, and twice as much as those using smartphones, so focussing on the look and feel of your tablet experience for consumers is vital in the run up to Christmas.”

The importance of mobile shopping to retailers in the run-up to Christmas was also highlighted by IMRG and Capgemini, who reported that the mobile sales accounts for around 27 percent of online sales and 38 percent of retail site visits.

The report also noted that mobile spend is currently split 80 / 20 between tablets and smartphones, which means that the forecast spend for tablets is 2.3 billion pounds compared to 600 million pounds for smartphones.

The ten brands were selected based on brand research studies including the Brandz Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands 2012 by WPP and the IMRG’s ‘Hitwise Hot Shops List’.

Images: Topshop tablet website