Amazon.co.uk Top Dog In Quarterly Hot List

Monday, March 8, 2010 - 11:28 by Mike Price

Online retail giant Amazon.co.uk is retaining its dominance over the safe shopping online scene, sitting pretty at the top of the IMRG Hot Shops List once more, whilst three other top online retailers- Argos, Play.com and Apple - also kept their positions since the previous edition of the report in November 2009.

The list, compiled by eCommerce membership community IMRG in conjunction with online marketing research firm Hitwise, measures the popularity of online retailers and is scored in terms of site visits made by consumers looking out for safe shopping online. In total there are 50 UK e-retailers who make up the List, with each List being published quarterly.

In terms of the top ten retailers in this edition, the first Hot Shops List of 2010, the only new entrant was Easyjet, which worked its way into the number ten spot. Other than this change, the list remained fairly stable, although Next and Marks & Spencer dropped in the rankings. Other retailers in the top ten include Amazon.co.uk's sister site Amazon.com, Tesco and John Lewis.

It is hardly surprising that Amazon.co.uk took the top position again. In fact, three years ago in February 2007, Amazon.co.uk was also on top of the pile, whilst Argos and Play.com were in similarly high spots. The bigger movers in the last few years have included the likes of Marks & Spencer, Next and John Lewis, all of which have risen significantly through the list since 2007.

Meanwhile, the rest of the list saw some more significant movements: Ticketmaster plummeted 21 places down to 37, whilst Sainsburys tumbled to 41. Retailers moving upwards in a big way included Thomas Cook, rising up to 15, a jump of 31 positions and British Airways, which moved up 11 places. The list also welcomed Very.co.uk, the revised online brand from high street chain Littlewoods.