The Q3 2024 benchmarking report for UK school uniform providers has just been published. Learn how the top 11 UK department stores perform across the digital space.

The latest Q3 2024 benchmarking report for UK school uniform providers has just been published. It covers the 11 largest school uniform providers in the UK, including Monkhouse, David Luke, Schoolblazer, Stevensons, Winterbottom’s Schoolwear, Trutex, Price & Buckland, School Uniform Direct, Zeco, School Uniform Shop, and SWI UK.

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 school uniform providers 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 Q3 report, click here. To get a copy of the full report and the key takeaways, please complete the enquiry form or schedule a call.

Q3 2024 WINNERS LEADERBOARD

For a glance into just six of the metrics we evaluated these top 11 school uniform providers on, check out our quick-look table below;

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

Request the report

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.

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. School uniform providers operate all year around with a higher demand during new school terms, so they need to manage ever-changing stock and ensure their websites remain technically compliant without any 404 errors codes or broken links, which can drive away prospective customers.

Stevensons flagged the most 4xx errors (36). This UK school uniform provider should assess its internal linking structure and included redirects for pages, if required. Otherwise, users can lose patience and consider resorting to a competitor website.

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. Mobile e-commerce sales reached $2.2 trillion in 2023, demonstrating the potential for online sales through mobile. School uniform providers typically target busy parents looking for fast loading speeds, allowing providers to increase conversion rates and avoid customers reaching to competitors. Brands should aim for above 90, though 50–89 is considered ‘okay’.

The mobile site speed for this quarter ranged between 67 and 9, and all providers should aim for at least 50% for mobile site speed. However, the brand to watch is SWI UK, which reported the slowest site. This brand can update to a more mobile-friendly theme and incorporate lazy loading to help increase usability and download speeds.

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. Domain authority is based on several factors such as high-quality backlinks being a significant factor in increasing a brand’s score. School uniform providers should expand their PR strategy across their entire product range to build a relationship with high-authoritative brands.

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 for this quarter ranged between 53 and 8, with Winterbottom’s Schoolwear reporting the lowest DA score. This school uniform provider saw the fewest number of backlinks and should optimise its website to help increase these, which will benefit its DA rating. The main strategy is to produce content that’s shareable so other websites will want to link to them.

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. . The cost of living crisis has affected brands across many sectors. While school uniform is considered a necessity, many consumers may opt for ways to reduce their outgoings by turning to money-saving alternatives, such as clothes donations, so we can expect to see a decrease in online traffic amongst these providers.

All brands saw more traffic for organic desktop year on year compared to organic traffic on mobiles. With this data in mind, all brands should look for ways to make their websites more mobile friendly to adhere to users who use the Internet on their mobile. For example, upgrading to a mobile website theme and increasing mobile site speed will help with improvements.

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. We should expect to see ‘images’ scoring the most points for Universal Search results, as school uniform providers rely on product imagery to increase sales. Given that this is a customer-facing sectors, brands should also look to expand on their total ‘reviews’ to improve trust.

Monkhouse reported the most Universal Search appearances overall (3,445), with the majority of these coming from ‘images’. On the other hand, Schoolblazer reported the fewest Universal Search appearances (22).

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. School uniform providers should focus on expanding their longtail keyword strategy across product specifications, including colour, sizing, pattern and texture, and even incorporate a high-quality blog to increase reach.

Trutex continues to report the most longtail keyword appearances — an increase from 168 in the last quarter to 221 for position 3. Stevensons saw the most appearances for positions 4–10 (538), and seeing lots of appearances in these positions is one of the quickest and most effective brands for brands to improve their position in search engines.

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.

We’ve included examples of Trutex’s sponsored Facebook posts. This provider should look to keep text to a maximum of 3 lines to improve the chances of social media users reading their posts when they’re scrolling.

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. Facebook ads allow school providers to expand their reach and brand awareness. There are certain factors they should keep in mind to cut costs for ads and improve conversions, such as speeding up landing pages and keeping text short to lower their cost per conversation.

Trutex has the largest Facebook page (4,700 Likes) and Instagram account (1,400 followers). Brands should focus on uploading content regularly to develop a relationship with their followers.

Website Readability & Accessibility

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 providers should meet the accessibility standards, taking into consideration readability and contrast errors to make websites understandable. Websites should favour visual consistency and consider text size and colour and prioritise these factors over an aesthetically pleasing design.  

In our last audit, School Uniform Shop reported 90 accessibility alerts, which it’s increased to 91 this quarter. Trutex still reported 101 errors, too. All brands should assess their website to reduce accessibility alerts and errors to improve readability for those using a screen reader.

GET THE FULL 70-PAGE Q3 2024 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 Mike Movassaghi.