The Q2 2025 benchmarking report for UK school uniform providers has just been published. Learn how the top 12 UK department stores perform across the digital space.

The latest Q2 2025 benchmarking report for UK school uniform providers has just been published. It covers the 12 largest school uniform providers in the UK, including Monkhouse, David Luke, Schoolblazer, Stevensons, Winterbottom’s Schoolwear, Trutex, Price & Buckland, School Uniform Direct, Zeco, Uniform Direct, School Uniform Shop, and SWI UK.

The research gives an inside track on who is winning the biggest share of voice online and quantifies the gaps, risks and missed opportunities for other school uniform providers to win brand exposure, drive online views, and increase in-store footfall (where relevant). The report highlights quick wins that will improve enquiries from your online strategy and identifies the barriers that may be reducing your site’s ability to optimise digital performance.

To see a preview and contents page of the Q2 report, click here. To get a copy of the full report and the key takeaways, please complete the enquiry form or schedule a call.

Q2 2025 WINNERS LEADERBOARD

For a glance into just six of the metrics we evaluated these top 12 school uniform providers on, check out our quick-look table below;

Continue reading for further detail on this quarter's best and poorest-performing UK school uniform providers or request a copy of the report for the full review.

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What The Industry Research Report Covers

The 70+ pages of research benchmarks each retailer based on 50+ metrics and indicators of successful digital strategy, including organic visibility, domain authority, paid media ads, conversion performance, technical performance, site speed, universal search, content, social ads, accessibility, and mobile performance.  

Driving Optimal ROAS from Paid Media Channels

Some of the leading players in the space are high spenders on paid media channels such as Google, Bing and Facebook - but have a poor or sub-optimal conversion improvement strategy. Without an optimised, sophisticated conversion strategy that maximises the conversion rate, the return on investment is unsustainable or will underperform. Scaling spend on paid media is not achievable unless the conversion rate delivers optimal performance in the sector. Some in the space have paid media spend levels from £30k+ per month but dedicate minimal resources and budgets to conversion testing.  Given the cost per clicks on ad networks will continue to rise, we recommend spending at least 10% of your paid media budget on ongoing conversion optimisation testing schedules to ensure your paid media ROI maintains long-term viability, competitive advantage, and sustainability.

Pay-Per-Click Marketing

Pay-Per-Click marketing is constantly evolving, with more and more advertisers being forced to hand over a lot of control to Google's algorithms as the push for automation grows ever stronger. There are still key elements of control that we have though, the main one of these being budget which is ultimately something the algorithms can't take from you. That's why being smart with your budget and ad coverage is essential to achieving strong results and bettering what your competitors have to offer.

For Q2 2025, the average monthly budget wastage across these UK school uniform providers was £41, with some of the top players in the market spending a considerable amount on areas and audiences unlikely to deliver a return. We can see this in more detail when looking at the average monthly cost per cost-per-click (CPC) amongst advertisers, with the average of this metric being £0.6 . This highlights how competitive the market is and how important it is to control your budgets effectively.

There are varying monthly ad budgets across the competitors in the report. While this gap highlights the competitive advantage that larger budgets can provide, it's not just about spending more; it’s about spending smarter. By focusing on driving efficiency in campaign management, targeting, and budget allocation, businesses with smaller budgets can still effectively compete with larger players. Investing in data-driven strategies and refining ad performance can help close the gap and maximise the return on every pound spent, enabling growth even in a competitive landscape. Relative to their spend, Trutex reported the lowest monthly cost-per-click (CPC) at £0, followed by School Uniform Shop at £2, and Price & Buckland has the highest at £5.

The report highlights the importance of budget efficiency by comparing monthly ad spend with estimated CPC in relation to your competitors, see who has the highest and lowest CPC. To maximise the effectiveness of your budget, it’s essential to focus on driving CPC down while maintaining or improving campaign performance. In this report, School Uniform Shop has the lowest estimate monthly ad spend at £835, and Price & Buckland has the highest at £2,470.

By optimising targeting, refining ad copy, and leveraging data to identify high-converting opportunities, you can ensure every click delivers maximum value. This approach not only stretches your budget further but also boosts your return on ad spend (ROAS), enabling you to achieve stronger results without simply increasing expenditure.

Technical Website Compliance

Savvy digital marketers know that having a technically sound website is an essential component of a successful fully integrated digital strategy - plus a site capable of maximising conversion performance. School uniform providers operate all year around with a higher demand during new school terms, so they need to manage ever-changing stock and ensure their websites remain technically compliant without any 404 errors codes or broken links, which can drive away prospective customers.

In our previous report Stevensons was the provider to watch, flagging 113 4xx errors. This quarter, Stevensons has slightly reduced their 4xx errors to 101, and they’re no longer the provider to watch. Instead, Trutex reported the highest number of 4xx errors this quarter (113). It’s important that all brands aim to reduce their 4xx errors to zero, as broken links can increase bounce rates.

Site Speed & Conversion Rate Performance

When 62% of consumers are less likely to convert if they have a negative mobile site experience, ensuring that your site is quick and easy to load will see a significant improvement on your overall conversion rates. Mobile e-commerce sales reached $2.2 trillion in 2023, demonstrating the potential for online sales through mobile. School uniform providers typically target busy parents looking for fast loading speeds, allowing providers to increase conversion rates and avoid customers reaching to competitors. Brands should aim for above 90, though 50–89 is considered ‘okay’.

The mobile site speed for this quarter ranged between 58 and 8, with SWI UK flagging the slowest mobile site speed. All brands should aim for at least 50% for mobile site speed to ensure they’re decreasing delays for their visitors, and 6/12 providers score 50% or above this quarter.

Building Competitive Advantage with Domain Authority

Domain authority (DA) is an essential metric for measuring the effectiveness of SEO performance and helps create a reliable overall gauge of how effective your site is at achieving organic traffic, i.e. ‘free’ traffic that isn’t gained through sponsored ads. Domain authority is based on several factors such as high-quality backlinks being a significant factor in increasing a brand’s score. School uniform providers should expand their PR strategy across their entire product range to build a relationship with high-authoritative brands.

A ‘good’ DA really comes down to how your competitors are performing, however, it’s generally considered average between 40 and 50, good between 50 and 60, and excellent above 60. The DA score for this quarter ranged between 52 and 3.4, with Winterbottom’s Schoolwear reporting the lowest score. This school uniform provider should aim to secure high-quality backlinks from trusted, reputable websites, and they can achieve this by building relationships with other brands in their niche and sharing backlinks to each other’s websites.

Organic Performance – Mobile & Desktop

A strong organic performance is strategically important as it ensures your site ranks above competitors for core, transactional keywords. When 93% of your customers won’t go past the first page of Google, your absence or lack of targeting for essential keywords will cost you conversions. . The cost of living crisis has affected brands across many sectors. While school uniform is considered a necessity, many consumers may opt for ways to reduce their outgoings by turning to money-saving alternatives, such as clothes donations, so we can expect to see a decrease in online traffic amongst these providers.

Five providers reported a decrease in organic traffic on desktop, with School Uniform Shop seeing the biggest loss (-14%). Meanwhile, 4 brands reported a decrease on mobile, with Winterbottom’s Schoolwear seeing the biggest loss (-68%).

Universal Search Opportunity

Google Universal Search Results are an evolving opportunity to make your pages visible on a SERP (Search Engine Results Page). Universal results often appear before traditional listings and are eye-catching for users. Universal search results refer to rankings on a SERP that are not the traditional ‘blue line’ Google link, and a retailer can appear for universal search results without being strong in standard rankings. We should expect to see ‘images’ scoring the most points for Universal Search results, as school uniform providers rely on product imagery to increase sales. Given that this is a customer-facing sectors, brands should also look to expand on their total ‘reviews’ to improve trust.

Trutex secured the most Universal Search appearances (965), with the majority of these appearances coming from ‘images’ (741). On the other hand, Winterbottom’s Schoolwear reported the fewest overall Universal Search appearances (31).

The Longtail Keyword Opportunity

Longtail keywords are often considered high intent and potentially more likely to convert as a searcher is being more specific. Optimising for longtail keywords also puts your content strategy in a strong position to rank for new search terms as they enter Google’s index. School uniform providers should focus on expanding their longtail keyword strategy across product specifications, including colour, sizing, pattern and texture, and even incorporate a high-quality blog to increase reach.

Trutex secured the most longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (235), while Monkhouse secured the most appearances for positions 4–10 (603). All school uniform providers should regularly assess their keyword strategy to ensure they’re utilising phrases that target their desired audience.

Facebook Adverts

With the number of Facebook users in the United Kingdom (UK) hitting over 44 million users in 2023, it is not surprising that companies have jumped at the opportunity to advertise on the social media platform. Facebook’s UK digital advertising revenue has been estimated to have breached 2.6b GB pounds in 2019. Facebook adverts are an opportunity for protein and sports nutrition brands to expand the reach of their organic content, and highlight new and key products.

We’ve included screenshots of Trutex’s sponsored Facebook posts. This UK school uniform provider has included less text compared to our previous audit, which will make it easier for social media users to scan.

Top Social Shares & Content

When it comes to social media and on-site content strategies, it is important to release content that has a longer shelf life. An article is considered 'evergreen' if it has maintained its relevancy to an audience for a long period of time. It's great for your engagement, but great for Google too, who will recognise content which achieves traffic over a long period of time. Facebook ads allow school providers to expand their reach and brand awareness. There are certain factors they should keep in mind to cut costs for ads and improve conversions, such as speeding up landing pages and keeping text short to lower their cost per conversation.

Trutex has the most Facebook Likes (4,900), while Price & Buckland has the most Instagram followers (1,700). Trutex received the highest total engagement rate (53) — a metric all brands should monitor.

Website Readability & Accessibility

20% of people in the UK have a disability – 2 million of which are people living with sight loss. In addition, 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women have some degree of colour vision deficiency. All providers should meet the accessibility standards, taking into consideration readability and contrast errors to make websites understandable. Websites should favour visual consistency and consider text size and colour and prioritise these factors over an aesthetically pleasing design.  

In our previous audit, School Uniform Shop flagged 81 accessibility alerts. This quarter, School Uniform Shop continued to report 81 accessibility alerts and is still the provider to watch. Meanwhile, Price & Buckland reported 51 contrast errors (the highest of all brands).

GET THE FULL 70-PAGE Q2 2025 REPORT

To get a copy of the full report, please complete the enquiry form. If you want to talk to us about accelerating your digital performance, please call us on 01543 410014 or schedule a call with Rory Tarplee.