With the value sector remaining popular with UK shoppers, Retail Week teamed up with SimilarWeb to track which discount retailers have been seeing the most traffic to their websites over the past two years
The cost-of-living crisis has meant consumer spend and sentiment have been lower than usual, but one sector that saw growth during the peak was the value sector.
Offering an affordable assortment of general merchandise, food, home and fashion, shoppers have been flocking to these bargain-led retailers seeking affordable products while inflation remains high.
While a lot of sales and traffic across the discount sector have been generated from stores, many shoppers choose to browse and buy online.
In terms of the most traffic seen between April 2023 and March 2024, TK Maxx came out on top with a total 134.5 million visits as shoppers looked to find bargains on a variety of items spanning clothes, beauty and home.
Retail Week data and insights director Lisa Byfield-Green said: “TK Maxx does a great job of creating a treasure hunt feel in its stores and more recently there has been a focus on trying to replicate this experience online.
“A wider assortment of items is being listed online and the retailer is generating excitement around new product drops on its homepage.”
During this period, The Range was the only other retailer to exceed 100 million visits as it totalled 116.3 million.
B&M drew in 68.5 million visits and took third, while Wilko came fourth with 58.8 million despite having a very turbulent year following mass store closures and the temporary shutting down of its ecommerce site.
However, despite Wilko coming fourth this year, it dropped one place and saw a 40 million decline in visits in comparison with April 2022 to March 2023, before the retailer went into administration.
The relaunch of wilko.com could put the retailer in a very different position next year, as it aims to drive more visits by offering flexible payments, home deliveries and click and collect across thousands of products.
Coming in fifth was Costco with 55.7 million visits, followed by The Works with 21.9 million and Poundland with 10.3 million.
Rounding off the top 10 are Home Bargains with 8.5 million visits, Poundstretcher with 1.9 million, and The Original Factory Shop (TOFS) with 1.6 million visits.
Now that Poundstretcher has Fortress as its new owner alongside a new chief executive formerly of Morrisons, this discount retailer will likely rise the ranks.
As it strives to “improve the shopping experience for customers”, Poundstretcher may see a boost in online traffic next year.
Omnichannel is key
What is notable about the data is how most of the value retailers saw a decline in yearly traffic in 2023/24.
This could be because the peak of the cost-of-living crisis was between late 2022 and early 2023, and shoppers are now opting for brick-and-mortar retail.
For the year between April 2022 and March 2023, TK Maxx reigned supreme and had 4.1 million more visits than the following year.
This is the pattern with many of the other retailers, as The Range, Wilko, B&M, Home Bargains, The Works and Pounstretcher all saw an overall drop in traffic from 2022/23 to 2023/24.
Both Costco and TOFS saw slight improvements in traffic in the latest period, with Costco amassing 55.7 million visits in 2023/24 compared with 55.2 million the year before, while TOFS reached 1.6 million visits compared with 1.5 million the year prior.
Poundland recorded the biggest jump in traffic in 2023/24, as visits grew to 10.3 million from 9 million.
This is most likely down to the digital transformation the retailer has recently undergone; it relaunched its website to become fully transactional in September 2023.
Byfield-Green said Poundland is still building its online presence but it is “encouraging” to see visits to the site growing.
While online traffic to value retailers has declined this year compared to last, Byfield-Green said this “reflects the return of footfall to stores”.
“Many of us go online to research products and see what is on offer before going into the store, or we may see an item in-store and look for it later online.
“Physical stores are important but what is more so is having an omnichannel presence,” she added.
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