Many UK retailers do a great job when it comes to the efficiency of their websites, but not all of them are household names.

That’s the finding of the latest Sitemorse Retail 500 INDEX, a benchmark of the very best websites of the UK’s top retailers. We don’t judge a site on the way it looks, or how it reads, but purely on how well its users will find it works across a variety of vital criteria.

A significant number of the top 20 websites tested this time are from regional and less well known names, proving the case that it’s often care and attention rather than large teams and budgets that make the difference.

At the very top of the table is Anoushka London, the niche fashion and jewellery outlet that has performed consistently in recent surveys, nationally known furniture store DFS, and the perhaps less well-known Lancashire-based Pownall Carpets, who have been producing traditional carpets based on British wool for more than half a century.

Some top 20 names you may not have heard of, however, include Leeds-based men’s outfitters Racing Green, in eighth position, Greenhalgh’s Bakers, a thriving chain of retail shops serving the North-West of England, Knutsford-based linen clothing firm Vivi, women’s knitwear specialists Tulchan, situated on the border of Cumbria, Lancashire and North Yorkshire, Van Hage and company, which has spent 60 years building up three major garden centres ,and Palmers, a department store based in Great Yarmouth that boasts 175 years of history.

The full INDEX will be published on February 21. Advance coverage has been featured in the Retail Bulletin
and Harpers Wine and Spirits Trade review