The Q1 2025 benchmarking report for UK department stores has just been published. Learn how the top 12 UK department stores perform across the digital space.

The latest Q1 2025 benchmarking report for UK department stores has just been published. It covers the 12 largest department stores in the UK, including Debenhams, Fenwick, Harrods, Selfridges, John Lewis & Partners, BHS, House of Fraser, Harvey Nichols, Beales Department Stores, Downtown, Marks and Spencer, and Liberty.

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 department stores to win brand exposure, drive online views, and increase in-store footfall (where relevant). 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 Q1 report, click here. To get a copy of the full report and the key takeaways, please complete the enquiry form or schedule a call.

Q1 2025 WINNERS LEADERBOARD

For a glance into just six of the metrics we evaluated these top 12 department stores on, check out our quick-look table below;

Continue reading for further detail on this quarter's best and poorest-performing UK department stores or request a copy of the report for the full review.

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What The Industry Research Report Covers

The 70+ pages of research benchmarks each retailer 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.  

Driving Optimal ROAS from Paid Media Channels

Some of the leading players in the space are high spenders on paid media channels such as Google, Bing and 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 underperform. 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.

Pay-Per-Click Marketing

Pay-Per-Click marketing is constantly evolving, with more and more advertisers being forced to hand over a lot of control to Google's algorithms as the push for automation grows ever stronger. There are still key elements of control that we have though, the main one of these being budget which is ultimately something the algorithms can't take from you. That's why being smart with your budget and ad coverage is essential to achieving strong results and bettering what your competitors have to offer.

For Q1 2025, the average monthly budget wastage across these UK department stores was £24,033, with some of the top players in the market spending a considerable amount on areas and audiences unlikely to deliver a return. We can see this in more detail when looking at the average monthly cost per cost-per-click (CPC) amongst advertisers, with the average of this metric being £36 . This highlights how competitive the market is and how important it is to control your budgets effectively. 

There are varying monthly ad budgets across the competitors in the report. While this gap highlights the competitive advantage that larger budgets can provide, it's not just about spending more; it’s about spending smarter. By focusing on driving efficiency in campaign management, targeting, and budget allocation, businesses with smaller budgets can still effectively compete with larger players. Investing in data-driven strategies and refining ad performance can help close the gap and maximise the return on every pound spent, enabling growth even in a competitive landscape. Relative to their spend, Debenhams reported the lowest monthly cost-per-click (CPC) at £o, followed by House of Fraser at £1, and BHS has the highest at £179.

The report highlights the importance of budget efficiency by comparing monthly ad spend with estimated CPC in relation to your competitors, see who has the highest and lowest CPC. To maximise the effectiveness of your budget, it’s essential to focus on driving CPC down while maintaining or improving campaign performance. In this report, Downtown has the lowest estimate monthly ad spend at £1,590, and Marks and Spencer has the highest at £651,000.

By optimising targeting, refining ad copy, and leveraging data to identify high-converting opportunities, you can ensure every click delivers maximum value. This approach not only stretches your budget further but also boosts your return on ad spend (ROAS), enabling you to achieve stronger results without simply increasing expenditure.

Technical Website Compliance

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. Department stores, which will be managing a large and ever-changing range of stock, will want to ensure their sites remain technically compliant and that users are not being driven down dead ends through broken links.

John Lewis reported 90 4xx errors — the highest of UK department stores. This brand should assess any broken links, and change any links to other page and/or check the spelling or URLs. If visitors are directed to links that don’t work, there’s a chance they could mistrust the brand.

Site Speed & Conversion Rate Performance

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 will see a significant improvement on your overall conversion rates. With mobile browsers accounting for 72.9% of all e-commerce sales in 2021, department stores should ensure their online user experience matches the high levels of customer service shoppers would expect from an up-market retail store.

The mobile site speed ranged between 57 and 9, with BHS flagging the slowest mobile site speed. When a website takes longer than 3 seconds to load, there’s a chance that users could leave the website, resulting in increased bounce rates.

Building Competitive Advantage with Domain Authority

Domain authority (DA) 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, i.e. ‘free’ traffic that isn’t gained through sponsored ads. Department stores have an excellent opportunity to build links, as they can look to collaborate with influencers & publications and develop eye-catching PR campaigns across their full range of products - enabling them to work across fashion, gifting, homeware, beauty, and any other niches their products fit into!

A ‘good’ DA really comes down to how your competitors are performing, however, it’s generally considered average between 40 and 50, good between 50 and 60, and excellent above 60. The DA score for this quarter ranged between 83 and 32, with Beales Department Stores flagging the lowest DA score. This department store should consider building close relationships with other authoritative websites that have a similar target audience to help increase their backlink.

Organic Performance – Mobile & Desktop

A strong organic performance is strategically important as it ensures your site ranks above competitors for core, 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. Luxury items and treats are likely to see falls in consumer interest due to the cost of living crisis. Department stores, therefore, will be seeing the impact of many consumers turning to cheaper alternatives, as opposed to opting for luxury shopping experiences.

Four of the department stores reported a decrease in organic traffic on desktop, and 6 saw a decrease on mobile. Seeing that mobile saw a bigger loss in traffic than on desktop, all department stores should check that their website loads quickly on mobile and that the navigation and checkout process is streamless.

Universal Search Opportunity

Google Universal Search Results are 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 retailer can appear for universal search results without being strong in standard rankings. For department stores with multiple branches, they'll potentially want to make use of 'local pack' results, while 'reviews' are a strong option for any retail store selling a variety of products. 'People also ask' and 'FAQ' appearances can also be useful, to capture traffic and interest from shoppers looking for specific lines and products.

John Lewis secured the most Universal Search Results overall (923,782), with the majority of these results coming from ‘images’ (586,600). All brands should aim to increase their Universal Search Results, as these can increase their visibility in search engines, helping to expand their online reach.

The Longtail Keyword Opportunity

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 new search terms as they enter Google’s index. Department stores have a near-infinite potential to rank for longtail keywords, as shoppers will be looking for specific items across their full product line. To maximise appearances, department stores should ensure on-page copy includes specifications such as sizing, colour, pattern, texture, and even delivery options.

Marks and Spencer reported the most longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (115,921), while John Lewis saw the most appearances for positions 4–10 (280,579). Securing appearances in positions 4–10 is an effective and successful way for brands to increase their position in search engine rankings.

Facebook Adverts

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 UK department stores, Facebook ads are an opportunity to showcase their offerings to a new audience.

We’ve included screenshots of Marks and Spencer’s sponsored Facebook posts. This UK department store included a vertical image/video for each post, showing that they’re considering social media users accessing their profile on a mobile.

Top Social Shares & Content

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 a long period of time. It's great for your engagement, but great for Google too, who will recognise content which achieves traffic over a long period of time. As discussed, department stores have a wealth of product lines to draw upon for encouraging social sharing, with fashion, beauty, and homeware providing a particularly strong opportunity to create shareable social content.

Marks and Spencer has the most Facebook Likes (5.9 million) and the most Instagram followers (2.3 million). Brands should think of social media as a great opportunity to connect with their customers and not just to showcase their products.

WEBSITE Readability & Accessibility

About 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. All customers are entitled to a convenient, luxury shopping experience, and department stores should take great care to ensure customers with vision deficiencies are not placed at a disadvantage when using their sites. 

Liberty London flagged the most accessibility alerts (347), with Beales Department Stores close behind (253). Accessibility alerts can harm how users perceive a website and can negatively impact how they navigate the website, which is why it’s important that they address and amend these alerts.

GET THE FULL 70-PAGE Q1 2025 REPORT

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 Rory Tarplee.

Photo by Korie Cull on Unsplash