Asos most visited fashion website but John Lewis rising fast

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Mar 23, 2018

Asos continues to ride high and was the most visited UK clothing e-tail site in the six months to February, a new study shows. It’s traffic volume rose 2.9% to keep it in the top spot. But with John Lewis storming ahead by almost 39%, it’s catching up fast and is already in second place.

That’s according to online data provider SEMrush, which also said that M&S in third place grew 8%. That’s good news for the under-pressure chain after its earlier website missteps.

Clearly, the battle is raging to win the hearts, minds and wallets of the UK fashion e-shopper. And that battle is between a mixture of department stores and fashion specialists although, interestingly, Asos is the only pureplay e-tailer at present in the top 10.

Is anyone else rivalling it? Well, as mentioned, John Lewis is rising fast and Zara rose 42.6% in the period, taking it up five positions to eighth place. Urban Outfitters surged 32.6% to sneak into the top ranking in 10th spot. And Debenhams was fifth with a 25.3% surge, suggesting that its greater focus on omnichannel is yielding results in terms of traffic.

In fact, it looks like department stores such as John Lewis, M&S and Debenhams are really making the most of the opportunities online shopping offers and it will be interesting to see how they fare in the next couple of years as they invest even more in their web ops.

The total top 10 comprises Asos, John Lewis and M&S in gold, silver and bronze positions, followed by Next in fourth place, although its traffic volume fell 7.7%. That’s interesting given that its latest set of annual results show that its online ops are still very strong. Perhaps the lower volume of traffic doesn’t take factors such as improved conversion into account.

Debenhams came next, as mentioned, and Sports direct was sixth but with an 8.3% fall. Meanwhile H&M was seventh, up 2.6%, a position that’s perhaps a surprise given that it’s actually number one in SEMrush’s global ranking, pushing Asos into second place. 

Finally, in ninth spot, New Look fell 14.9% but still managed to beat the rising Urban Outfitters.