In June this year, we published our fourth annual edition of the Home & Garden Top 50 Ecommerce Report, and the results have been surprising.
The aim of the report is to analyse the industry and identify key trends that other retailers can benchmark against. To do so, we score the UK’s leading Home & Garden brands, which use Magento 2 or Adobe Commerce, against a set of criteria created to set the standard for ecommerce best practice.
To keep up to date with ecommerce trends and new technology, we introduced a new round of criteria for the year’s report, including:
- Voice search
- Video on the product page
- Product recommendations in the add-to-cart message
- Add-to-basket on the category page
- Home page load time
- Reviews that can be filtered, sorted and searched
- Instant Bank Transfer
- Embedded social feed
- Regularly updated TikTok
This new set of criteria has dramatically altered the look of the scoreboard when compared to 2022. Only eight brands out of 50 improved their score year on year, the rest remained stationary or slipped down the rankings.
So what is it that the top Home & Garden brands have in common? What tools do they use? What solutions do they offer customers?
Read on to discover what the top brands did this year to go up the rankings.
Movers & Shakers
In 2023, there were four Home & Garden retailers in the top 20 who increased their score year-on-year:
| Retailer | 2022 Score | 2023 Score |
| Rockett St George | 77% | 80% |
| Rose & Grey | 71% | 76% |
| Robert Dyas | 72% | 77% |
| Charles Bentley | 66% | 73% |
In order to move up the ranks, they each invested in critical areas of ecommerce best practice. These boiled down to three key areas:
- Product Page UX
- Payments
- Lighthouse Performance
1. Product Page UX
The product page was a big area of focus for our retailers. And it’s not surprising – the product page is the vital selling location. It’s where brands showcase their goods and overcome any obstacles that might prevent a sale.
Reviews
78% of the top 50 ecommerce brands hosted reviews on their home page, and 74% included them on their product page. To improve their 2023 ranking, Rockett St George and Rose & Grey added reviews to their product pages:
Zoom
Photos and videos of products on the product page are great, but if home & garden brands really want to stand out then they need to include good zoom options.
Rockett St George added in controllable zoom on both mobile and desktop to their product page. This will make it even easier for their customers to keep a close look at their beautiful items online.
Delivery info
“I love it, but how long will it take to arrive?” – if you want to deliver a superior shopping experience for your customers, don’t wait till checkout to let them know delivery times.
Being transparent about delivery times – and costs – on the product page is an excellent way to convince shoppers to click ‘add to cart’. That’s why Charles Bentley updated their product pages this year.
Product Recommendations
If your product page is looking good, then now’s the time to take it to the next level with personalisation. By offering shopping additional or alternative items to consider, you can make sure shoppers don’t leave empty handy or even increase your average order.
On Rockett St George, you can shop similar items or discover complimentary items with their ‘Shop the Look’ carousel:
Meanwhile, Charles Bentley showcases items that other customers liked the look of, and also offers discounted product bundles:
2. Payments
Payments on any website need to be safe and secure. But they also need to offer shoppers a choice to pay in the way that they want to. Many of our brands expanded their payment options this year.
Rockett St George added Apple Pay, and Robert Dyas has begun offering Buy Now Pay Later with Klarna:
However, Charles Bentley completed the hat trick by including Klarna, Google Pay and Apple Pay. The outdoor living company has taken payments very seriously this year, by:
- Setting up product imagery in checkout (to reduce the bounce rate at this stage)
- Displaying payment logos across the site before either the shopping basket or checkout
Given the higher product value of their products, displaying logos across the site – in the global footer and on the product page – helps to build trust among new and returning customers.
3. Lighthouse Performance
The final area where our brands improved was their Lighthouse Performance. There is some dispute as to how useful Lighthouse scores can be in determining the success of an ecommerce website.
However, they can be a useful tool in sense checking whether a website is improving or not.
Charles Bentley and Robert Dyas both made great strides in improving their Lighthouse scores (out of 100):
| Charles Bentley | 2022 | 2023 |
| Mobile Lighthouse Score | 8 | 35 |
| Desktop Lighthouse Score | 14 | 81 |
| Robert Dyas | 2022 | 2023 |
| Mobile Lighthouse Score | 13 | 29 |
| Desktop Lighthouse Score | 23 | 52 |
By way of comparison the average score in 2023 for Desktop was 65/100, and Mobile was 30/100.
How do you compare?
Product Page UX, Payments and Lighthouse Scores are just three areas that we reviewed in our 2023 Home & Garden Report. However, they provide a clue as to what the top brands are investing in in order to achieve ecommerce excellence.
To find out more about the leading Adobe Commerce brands, download the report here.
And if you want to discover how you can become a top 50 Home & Garden retailer, contact our team for a chat about your ecommerce performance and goals.