The Q2 2024 benchmarking report for UK convenience stores has just been published. Learn how 6 of the top UK convenience stores perform across the digital space.
The Q2 2024 benchmarking report for UK convenience stores has just been published. It covers 6 of the largest national convenience stores, including Premier, Budgens, One Stop, Nisa, Londis, and Costcutter - it highlights year-on-year digital performance, plus winner and loser comparisons in 20+ online performance metrics.
The research gives an inside track on who is winning the biggest share of voice online and quantifies the gaps, risks and missed opportunities for other convenience stores to win brand exposure locally, increase in-store footfall, and drive traffic online. The report highlights quick wins that will improve enquiries from your online strategy and identifies the barriers that may be reducing your site’s ability to optimise digital performance.
To see a preview and contents page of the Q2 report, click here. To get a copy of the full report and the key takeaways, please complete the enquiry form or schedule a call.
For a glance into just 6 of the metrics we evaluated these top 6 convenience stores on, check out our quick-look table below;
Continue reading for further detail on this quarter's best and poorest-performing UK convenience stores or request a copy of the report for the full review.
The 70+ pages of research benchmarks each brand based on 50+ metrics and indicators of successful digital strategy, including organic visibility, domain authority, paid media ads, conversion performance, technical performance, site speed, universal search, content, social ads, accessibility, and mobile performance.
Some of the leading players in the space are high spenders on paid media channels such as Google, Bing & Facebook - but have a poor or sub-optimal conversion improvement strategy. Without an optimised, sophisticated conversion strategy that maximises the conversion rate, the return on investment is unsustainable or will under-perform. Scaling spend on paid media is not achievable unless the conversion rate delivers optimal performance in the sector. Some in the space have paid media spend levels from 30k+ per month but dedicate minimal resources and budgets to conversion testing. Given the cost per clicks on ad networks will continue to rise, we recommend spending at least 10% of your paid media budget on ongoing conversion optimisation testing schedules to ensure your paid media ROI maintains long term viability, competitive advantage, and sustainability.
Savvy digital marketers know that having a technically sound website is an essential component of a successful fully integrated digital strategy - plus a site capable of maximising conversion performance. For convenience stores, they'll want to take particular care that key pages, such as store locators, are clearly sign-posted.
When 62% of consumers are less likely to convert if they have a negative mobile site experience, ensuring that your site is quick and easy to load makes a significant improvement on your overall conversion rates. Convenience store customers will often be visiting sites on the go, looking for nearby branches that they can immediately visit. Therefore an optimal mobile page experience is essential for giving a good impression of the brand.
For Q2 2024, the mobile site speed ranged between 63 and 17, with Costcutter flagging the lowest score. This UK convenience store should ensure all images on its website are optimised (including using the correct image format) to help increase its mobile site speed.
Domain authority is an essential metric for measuring the effectiveness of SEO performance, and helps create a reliable overall gauge of how effective your site is at achieving organic traffic, ie. ‘free’ traffic that isn’t gained through sponsored ads. With a range of products on offer, convenience stores should be able to create digital PR campaigns spanning multiple content themes, giving them a range of opportunities to build authority.
A ‘good’ DA really comes down to how your competitors are performing, however it is generally considered average between 40 and 50, good between 50 and 60, and excellent above 60. The DA for this quarter ranged between 57 and 45, with Premier reporting the lowest DA. While this UK convenience store saw the most backlinks, the these were from the fewest domains. It’s important that brands seek backlinks from a variety of high-authoritative websites to help with their DA score.
A strong organic performance is strategically important as it ensures your site ranks above competitors for key, transactional keywords. When 93% of your customers won’t go past the first page of Google, your absence or lack of targeting for essential keywords will cost you conversions. Due to the cost-of-living crisis, we're seeing that many potential customers across a number of sectors are either cutting back on expendable items, or opting for cheaper alternatives. Convenience stores may be feeling the impact of this, as their potential customers may be taking greater care to do larger shops at cheaper supermarkets, as opposed to picking up items as needed.
In our previous audit, all convenience stores reported a loss in organic mobile traffic. In this quarter, 2 convenience stores saw an increase in organic mobile traffic (Budgens and Londis). The store with the biggest loss for mobile was Nisa (-24%) and Costcutter for desktop (-11%). Companies can increase organic traffic by giving readers a reason to visit their website, such as updating their blog.
Google Universal Search Results is an evolving opportunity to make your pages visible on a SERP (Search Engine Results Page). Universal results often appear before traditional listings and are eye-catching for users. Universal search results refer to rankings on a SERP that are not the traditional ‘blue line’ Google link, and a brand can appear for universal search results without being strong in standard rankings. For convenience stores, they'll want to ensure they're appearing for 'Local Pack' results, ensuring they are prominent when potential customers are looking for a nearby shop.
One Stop saw the highest Universal Search appearances (2,881), with 1,100 of these appearances coming from ‘images’ — an increase from 23,800 in the previous quarter. On the other hand, Costcutter reported the fewest Universal Search appearances and should reach out to past customers to ask for reviews to help increase their appearances in SERPs.
Longtail keywords are often considered high intent and potentially more likely to convert as a searcher is being more specific. Optimising for longtail keywords also puts your content strategy in a strong position to rank for brand-new search terms as they enter Google’s index. For convenience stores, long-tail keywords could be focused on specific products that potential customers are looking for, and a strong performance here could see quick visits from local customers needing a last-minute ingredient or essential item.
Premier saw the most longtail keyword appearances (1,229 in positions 3) and 2,474 in positions 4–10). On the other hand, Costcutter saw the fewest longtail keyword appearances for positions 3 (198). This convenience store can maximise its results by ensuring it’s not keyword stuffing but including keyphrases in blogs and across its website.
With the number of Facebook users in the United Kingdom (UK) hitting over 44 million users in 2023, it is not surprising that companies have jumped at the opportunity to advertise on the social media platform. Facebook’s UK digital advertising revenue has been estimated to have breached 2.6b GB pounds in 2019. For convenience stores, they can use Facebook adverts to drive awareness of deals or sales events, or use local targeting to improve brand awareness in areas that footfall is low.
We’ve included 3 examples of Nisa sponsored Facebook posts. This UK convenience store included a variety of 2 carousels a vertical video. Carousel images are a great option for brands because they allow them to showcase multiple products in a single post.
When it comes to social media and on-site content strategies, it is important to release content that has a longer shelf life. An article is considered 'Evergreen' if it has maintained its relevancy to an audience for longer. It's great for your brand engagement, but great for Google too, who will recognise content which achieves traffic over a long period of time. As we've mentioned previously, convenience stores can create content supporting any of their product lines, whether that's through recipe content, household cleaning items, or seasonal ranges.
Nisa continues to have the highest engagement (15,358) — a decrease from our previous audit (18,151). Budgens has the most Facebook Likes (242,700), while CostCutter has the most Instagram followers (21,000). However, it’s important that brands assess their social media engagement rather than basing their success on the number of social media followers, as this informs brands of whether their followers interact with their posts.
20% of people in the UK have a disability – 2 million of which are people living with sight loss. In addition, 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women have some degree of colour vision deficiency. When websites are not designed to meet these needs, brands lose customer interest as they turn elsewhere. Convenience stores will want to ensure a 'convenient' brand experience for all potential customers, at any digital (or in-store) touchpoint.
In our previous audit, Nisa had reduced its accessibility alerts to 81, but this has now increased to 105 in this quarter. It’s important that this convenience store reduces orphaned form labels and redundant links to prevent reducing readability for those using a screen reader.
To get a copy of the full report, please complete the enquiry form. If you want to talk to us about accelerating your digital performance, please call us on 01543 410014 or schedule a call with Mike Movassaghi.