Apple comes bottom in retail website rankings

The technology giant, which was yesterday named the world’s most valuable brand, fell short of rivals’ offers in multichannel consultancy Practicology’s second annual Website Usability Report.

Apple was marked down for a lack of mobile site, poor delivery options, not offering a click-and-collect service from Apple stores and delivery charges not explained in the shopping basket.

House of Fraser, Asos and Littlewoods retained their top three positions in the report offering a strong selection of delivery options and clear information.

Currys, Sports Direct and IKEA were the three biggest risers in the rankings.

Practicology chief executive Martin Newman said: “The best sites link to delivery and returns information on every page of the site and also provide specific delivery information and costs on product pages, in the basket as well as at checkout.

“This means there are no nasty surprises for customers at the last moment as they make the final decision to complete the transaction.

He added: “Ideally retailers should be serving up product suggestions on the homepage, through type-ahead site search as well as on individual product pages. And there is really little excuse with the merchandising technology available if suggestions aren’t really relevant and cross-sell and up-sell opportunities aren’t maximised.”

Practicology added that customer ratings and reviews, having a mobile site and offering click-and-collect are vital to becoming strong etailers.

• The world’s largest online retailer Amazon was just 218^th in the World Retail Congress 2013’s survet on the world’s top 250 retailers. European retailers took the top three places with Swedish food retailer ICA in number one position followed by C&A and Spar Group. Jewellery business Signet came bottom of the list.