Research at a Glance

THE ELEMENTS INCLUDED in each Dimension are summarised below.

0. Footprint Dimension

0.1 EEA retail turnover, ranging from €900,000 to €70 billion – average €2.1 billion

0.2 The ecommerce subset of the above, ranging from €900,000 to €25 billion – average €323 million

0.3 EEA web traffic, ranging from 545,000 to 275 billion page views per year – average 700 million

0.4 Number of EEA stores, ranging from 0 to 12,000 locations – average 400

1. The Customer Dimension

1.1 Website performance and usability

1.2 Customer service channels offered and localisation

1.3 Number of socially active customers and their interaction levels

2. Operations and Logistics Dimension

2.1 Delivery, including range of options, and competitiveness of timeframes and pricing

2.2 Returns, including the ease of the returns and refund process to the customer, and the range of options, including return to store of an ecommerce order

2.3 Collection, a summary of collection points offered by retailers, including own store, transport location, lockers and third-party stores

3. Merchandising Dimension

3.1 Customer-perspective website review, covering design, navigation, the relevance of search results, product information and visual appeal

3.2 Mobile app assessment, including the use of notifications, product display and personalisation *

4. Brand Engagement Dimension

4.1 Social media presence and availability, taking into account size of audience and interaction with it on Twitter, the net change over three months, and use of 10 social networks, email and blog

4.2 Email assessment evaluating read, open, delete and mark-as-spam rates *

4.3 Search assessment including total applicable keywords, total reach, share of search compared to other retailers, and relative visibility in search results *

5. Mobile and Cross-channel Dimension

5.1 Mobile web home page performance

5.2 Cross-channel, taking into account use of physical store estate for ecommerce order fulfilment and return, store information on the website, and combined online and offline loyalty programmes *

5.3 Mobile app, measuring the usability and functionality of apps and weighting features according to their impact on AOV, time spent on app, and conversion rate

6. Strategy and Innovation Dimension

6.1 Growth-orientation across the EEA, measuring how many supported languages, currencies, and countries retailers offer regardless of how significant current sales are via those portals

6.2 Website performance, including engineering and responsiveness

6.3 Flexible order fulfilment

6.4 Advanced merchandising techniques

* Additional research activity performed on a subset of the index