UK e-commerce is dominated by a mixture of marketplaces, general retailers, grocers, electronics sellers, home-improvement brands and fashion businesses. Semrush’s August 2026 UK retail traffic ranking provides one useful way to compare them: estimated monthly website visits. On that measure, Amazon.co.uk ranked first with 212.67 million visits, followed by eBay.co.uk with 95.42 million and Argos.co.uk with 38.04 million. Etsy, Tesco, DIY.com, Asda, Currys, AliExpress and Next completed the top ten. This is a traffic ranking, not a sales, revenue, GMV or profit ranking. That distinction is essential because traffic measures audience scale, while commercial performance depends on conversion, average order value, margins, repeat purchasing and many other factors.
The August 2026 top ten shows how concentrated traffic is at the top
Amazon.co.uk recorded an estimated 212.67 million monthly visits in the Semrush dataset, more than double eBay.co.uk at 95.42 million. Argos was third at 38.04 million, followed by Etsy at 25.61 million and Tesco at 23.55 million.
The rest of the top ten was tightly grouped: DIY.com at 23.39 million, Asda at 22.91 million, Currys at 21.85 million, AliExpress at 20.30 million and Next at 20.22 million visits.
The advantage of a traffic ranking is simplicity. It shows which retail websites attract large volumes of UK visits and gives ecommerce teams a sense of the scale of leading digital destinations.
The disadvantage is that traffic alone does not reveal commercial quality. A site with fewer visits may generate more revenue if its average basket value or conversion rate is higher. A grocery site may be visited frequently for routine purchases, while a furniture or electronics site may receive fewer visits but larger order values.
The top two also show how strong marketplace behaviour remains. Amazon and eBay aggregate enormous ranges of products and sellers, which creates reasons for consumers to return frequently. That model is structurally different from a single-brand retailer, so direct comparison requires care.
Mobile traffic changes how ecommerce platforms need to be engineered
Several of the top-ten sites show very high mobile shares in the same Semrush traffic data. Argos was around 78% mobile, Asda about 80.47%, Currys 74.85%, DIY.com 72.85% and Next 73.18%. Tesco was also strongly mobile at around 65.9%.
That has direct implications for ecommerce engineering. A site used mainly on mobile devices needs fast page loads, touch-friendly navigation, resilient checkout flows and forms that work well on small screens. Product search and filtering need to remain usable without forcing customers through dense desktop-style interfaces.
The advantage of mobile-heavy traffic is accessibility. Customers can browse and buy anywhere. The disadvantage is that mobile environments are less forgiving. Slow pages, intrusive overlays or awkward payment steps can destroy conversion quickly.
Mobile users may also have less stable connectivity. Ecommerce teams therefore need to think about image optimisation, caching, script weight and failure recovery. A checkout that works perfectly on a fast office connection may behave very differently on a crowded mobile network.
For software houses and ecommerce operators, the lesson is clear: responsive design is only the starting point. The technical architecture needs to treat mobile performance as a core operational requirement rather than a cosmetic layout issue.
Desktop still matters for some of the largest ecommerce destinations
Amazon and eBay show that mobile dominance is not universal. In the Semrush data, Amazon traffic was approximately 49.3% mobile and 50.7% desktop, while eBay was around 36.15% mobile and 63.85% desktop.
That difference may reflect user behaviour, product categories, seller activity and the way customers research purchases. Marketplace users can spend longer comparing listings, managing accounts or selling products, activities that may still suit a larger screen.
The advantage of a strong desktop audience is that retailers can support richer comparison, account-management and productivity-style workflows. The disadvantage is that teams cannot optimise only for the dominant device category and assume the rest is unimportant.
A mature ecommerce platform therefore needs consistent account state, baskets, wishlists and order history across devices. Customers may research on desktop and purchase on mobile, or do the reverse. Broken cross-device continuity creates friction even when each individual interface looks polished.
This is especially important for logged-in customers. Persistent carts, reliable authentication and synchronised account data help turn multi-device behaviour into a benefit rather than a source of confusion.
Traffic leadership does not automatically mean better ecommerce operations
High traffic creates opportunity, but it also creates operational pressure. Large sites need resilient inventory systems, payment processing, fraud controls, search, fulfilment integrations, customer-service tooling and monitoring capable of handling peaks.
The advantage of scale is data. High-volume retailers can learn from enormous numbers of searches, clicks and purchases. They can test merchandising, recommendations and checkout changes with statistical confidence.
The disadvantage is complexity. A small error in stock synchronisation or pricing can affect thousands of orders. A slow release can reduce conversion across a huge customer base. Integration failures between ecommerce platforms, warehouses, couriers and payment systems can become expensive quickly.
This is where software architecture becomes part of commercial performance. Ecommerce teams need clear ownership of integrations, reliable event processing, observability and controlled release processes. The website is only the customer-facing layer of a much larger operational system.
Smaller retailers can learn from this without copying enterprise complexity. The useful lesson is not to build the same technology as Amazon. It is to recognise that growth creates operational dependencies and to strengthen the systems that matter most before traffic exposes their weaknesses.
What software and ecommerce teams should learn from the top ten
The August 2026 ranking shows that UK ecommerce traffic is spread across several business models. Marketplaces dominate the very top, but grocers, home-improvement retailers, electronics sellers and fashion brands also attract tens of millions of monthly visits.
For ecommerce teams, the benefit of benchmarking leaders is that it reveals common expectations: strong mobile experiences, fast search, clear product information, reliable checkout and account continuity. The drawback is that copying visible features without understanding the underlying business model can waste effort.
A grocer needs repeat ordering, substitutions and delivery-slot logic. An electronics retailer needs comparison, specifications and warranty information. A marketplace needs seller management, trust systems and vast search infrastructure. The same traffic metric can sit on top of very different technical priorities.
For software houses, the ranking provides evidence that ecommerce engineering is not only about front-end design. The biggest operational gains often come from integrations, stock accuracy, order routing, payment resilience and support tooling behind the scenes.
The strongest conclusion is therefore precise: according to Semrush’s August 2026 estimated UK retail website traffic, Amazon.co.uk, eBay.co.uk, Argos.co.uk, Etsy.com, Tesco.com, DIY.com, Asda.com, Currys.co.uk, AliExpress.com and Next.co.uk formed the top ten. That tells us where large audiences are visiting. It does not tell us which company is most profitable or has the highest sales.
Used correctly, the ranking is a useful ecommerce benchmark. Used carelessly, it becomes another league table pretending traffic and commercial success are the same thing. For engineering and operations teams, the more valuable question is what technical capabilities allow high-traffic retail platforms to remain fast, reliable and usable as customer demand grows.
Source: Semrush Traffic Analytics, Most Visited Retail Websites in the United Kingdom, August 2026.