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RXUK TOP500 How the RXUK Top500 fits into RetailX research

The RetailX Top500 (RXUK Top500) this year has a new name – one that reflects its position within the larger RetailX research and publishing stable. The new name for the listing of the UK’s leading retailers, previously called the InternetRetailing Top500, comes in the sixth year of publication. It comes as RetailX research refocuses on an analysis of European and global ecommerce and multichannel retailing that’s at the same time wider and more in-depth. That analysis recognises the place of the UK’s Top500 retailers in a connected retail landscape that also includes marketplaces and retail brands, and stretches beyond the UK to markets across Europe.

Beyond retailers 

Many online retail sales no longer take place from regular retail websites. Rather, as the Sankey chart above shows, regular retailers see only about 34% of UK web traffic to the Top500 according to data researched in collaboration with SimilarWeb. The largest share (45%) goes to marketplaces, where a relatively small number of platforms see almost half of all retail traffic that touches Top500 retailers. A smaller share (21%) goes to brands that sell directly to customers. Given these insights into the way that customers shop, it follows that RetailX would look further and more closely at marketplaces and at direct-selling brands. The annual RetailX Brand Index was published late last year and looks at how brands take on the challenges of selling directly to their consumers, rather than via third-party retailers. It also lists the leading pan-European brands that sell across the countries of the EEA plus the UK and Switzerland. Find out more about the RetailX Brand Index 2019 at internetretailing.net/rxbx.

In the coming year that will be followed by the latest edition of the RetailX Europe Top500, and by the first RetailX Marketplaces report. The marketplaces report follows the shopper’s attention as it’s drawn towards destinations that offer a wider and more international range of goods. It will look at the performance, capabilities and trends of these direct-to-consumer marketplaces that are now a vital location in trading goods, and will assess how both retailers and brands can most effectively use them. 

Sustainability is a new focus for RetailX publications, and 2020 will also see the first RetailX Sustainability Report. The report will look at what it means to be sustainable when selling online, and how retailers can help their customers to achieve the reduced carbon footprint that so many now prioritise. It will build on research already covered in 2020 in a new eDelivery report, Sustainability after the buy button 2020. That report looks at delivery emissions and plastic waste and what retailers in the UK and Europe can do to reduce them – in a context in which shoppers seem enthusiastic about protecting the environment but have as yet done relatively little to change their online shopping habits or to pay more to mitigate the environmental effects of their purchases. 

Beyond the UK

The next RetailX Europe Top500 will bring the latest ranking of leading retailers selling in the 32 markets of the EEA plus the UK and Switzerland. As with previous editions, it will assess how retailers and brands approach selling to a larger geographic area where customers speak a wider number of languages and buy in a wider number of currencies, but with regulatory alignment within a single market. Case studies analyse how the most successful retailers, including Allegro, Argos, Darty, H&M, Rue du Commerce and Zara, use ecommerce within their businesses. Find out more about the RetailX Europe Top500 report at internetretailing.net/rxeu
Alongside this pan-European coverage, we also report in detail on markets worldwide, through the analyst reports produced by the Netherlands-based Ecommerce Foundation, now part of the RetailX family. During 2020, the Ecommerce Foundation Country and Regional Reports will include information on the performance of top retailers and brands selling direct to shoppers within each market, alongside analysis of the sector and of related economic and market drivers.

Recent Ecommerce Foundation reports are currently available on markets including India, Australia, China and the USA, while an exhaustive Europe-focused programme of reports is planned for the coming year. The first two will cover the Danish and UK markets. Find out more about the country and regional reports at retailx.net/countries.

Across sectors

RetailX analyst reports focus on individual retail sectors to give our audience of ecommerce and multichannel retail professionals new levels of insight into the factors driving customer behaviour, and retail performance within each. The latest sector reports are on beauty and cosmetics, fast fashion and luxury. Each provides the strategic and commercial context in which the best retailers and brands perform in their market sectors. They combine more than four years of in-depth company performance research with analysis of sector dynamics to help retailers better understand the current state of each sector and plan for the next five years. Find out more about the sector reports at retailx.net/sectors. 

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