August 22 2006

IMRG's "Hot Shop List" released

The IMRG has teamed up with Hitwise to create a quarterly league table of the UK's 'Top 50' etailers.

The IMRG and Hitwise announce their 'Hot Shop List' (HSL).

This is a view based on Hitwise's information and IMRG's market classifications.

Ordinarily, retailers who pay for Hitwise's services only see their own data and that of close or sectoral competitors for benchmarking purposes. This report gives a broader view and a non-partisan consistency around the classification.

It's no surprise to see Amazon at the top, but some of the others in the field are surprising - one certainly gets a feel for the richness and changing face of etail in the UK.

IMRG's CEO, James Roper, comments:

"The most surprising thing about the Hot Shops List is the brands missing from it. Location, location, location was the traditional retail mantra, but with the internet removing location from the retail equation, popularity, as indicated by website visits, is becoming the key performance indicator. It is clear that many retailers who dominate the high street are just not attracting their share of virtual footfall; only time will tell what the ramifications of their deficit will be."

Hitwise's VP of Research, Heather Hopkins, reminds us of the seasonal underpinning of retail:

As the busy summer holiday season draws to a close and as shoppers turn their attention to the start of the new school year and Christmas, we can expect travel retailers to move back down the rankings.

The Top 50 list is here:

1. Amazon UK 2. Argos 3. Expedia.co.uk 4. Dell EMEA 5. Tesco.com 6. Play.com 7. easyJet 8. Amazon.com 9. Thomson Holidays 10. lastminute.com 11. RyanAir.com 12. Next 13. Apple Computer 14. British Airways 15. TalkTalk 16. Thomas Cook 17. John Lewis Stores 18. MyTravel UK 19. Marks & Spencer 20. First Choice 21. Tesco Superstore 22. bmibaby 23. Thomsonfly.com 24. Comet UK 25. Currys 26. Packard Bell United Kingdom 27. B&Q 28. HMV.co.uk 29. QVCUK.com 30. Ticketmaster United Kingdom 31. O2 Shop 32. The Orange Shop 33. Flybe.com 34. Travelodge UK 35. Debenhams 36. PC World E-Commerce 37. Carphone Warehouse 38. Littlewoods Online 39. InterContinental Hotels Group 40. Jet2 41. Woolworths UK 42. Tesco Electrical Warehouse 43. Maplin Electronics 44. Monarch Airlines 45. Premier Travel Inn 46. Apple iTunes 47. ASOS 48. HP 49. BMI British Midlands 50. Opodo UK

We'll be covering the movers, shakers and shaken in the list each quarter.

Ian Jindal The "Hot Shop List" is by the IMRG and Hitwise, reproduced by permission. The full list and the IMRG's comments are available in the Press Releases section of the IMRG website.