UK Home and Garden Ecommerce Industry Report

Year-on-Year Traffic Decline Signals Structural Headwinds

UK Home and Garden e-commerce stores recorded an average of 6,450.99 monthly visits in January 2026, representing a meaningful contraction from the 6,817.83 average seen in January 2024. The broader 2025 trajectory tells a stark story: following the traffic highs of late 2024 — when monthly averages peaked at 12,250.996 in October and 12,246.08 in November — the segment entered 2025 on a sharply lower footing. By May 2025, average monthly traffic had fallen to 5,925.06, the lowest point across the entire two-year dataset. Although modest recovery followed through the summer and into year-end, the January 2026 figure of 6,450.99 sits well below the equivalent period in 2024, underscoring a structural rather than seasonal softening. Organic search traffic, the dominant acquisition channel, posted a -7.4% year-on-year decline, amplifying concerns about long-term visibility in this segment.

Organic Search Dominates, But Its Grip Is Loosening

The traffic split for January 2026 reveals a segment almost entirely dependent on SEO. Organic search accounted for 4,150,169 visits out of a total 4,418,929, representing 93.9% of all traffic. Organic social contributed a secondary but meaningful 5.7% (251,120 visits), while paid search delivered just 16,386 visits — a 0.4% share — and paid social registered a negligible 1,254 visits (0.0%). This extreme concentration in organic search creates significant vulnerability: the -7.4% year-on-year decline in organic traffic directly translates into revenue pressure with limited ability to offset losses through paid channels. Stores in this segment are investing minimally in paid search diversification, leaving them exposed to algorithm shifts or increased SERP competition without a meaningful alternative acquisition buffer.

Revenue Compression Tracks Traffic Losses Closely

Average store revenue has followed the traffic curve downward with notable consistency. January 2026 average revenue of £30,391.37 compares unfavourably to £37,525.69 in January 2024 — a decline of approximately -19.0% over two years. The peak revenue period mirrored the traffic surge of autumn 2024, with October 2024 (£61,618.15) and November 2024 (£62,453.11) representing the highest earnings in the dataset. However, 2025 brought a sustained reset: May 2025 saw average revenue collapse to £26,699.43, the lowest point across all 25 periods recorded. The partial recovery through the second half of 2025 — rising from £26,699.43 in May to £32,149.37 in December — suggests some stabilisation, but January 2026's £30,391.37 indicates that post-holiday softness continues to suppress performance. The correlation between the organic search traffic decline of -7.4% and revenue compression points to a conversion environment where fewer visitors are arriving and spend per store has yet to recover to 2024 norms. For operators in this segment, rebuilding organic visibility — or supplementing it with more diversified paid acquisition — appears critical to reversing the current downward trend.

Organic Traffic Trends Show Year-on-Year Pressure

UK Home and Garden e-commerce stores recorded an average of 6,058.64 organic search visits in January 2026, reflecting a -7.4% year-on-year decline in SEO traffic and a -5.7% contraction in organic SERP visibility. This sustained downward pressure follows what was a notably strong autumn 2024 period, when average SEO traffic peaked at 12,130.19 in October 2024 before declining sharply through the winter and into 2025. The segment has not recovered to those levels since, with monthly averages consistently ranging between 5,600 and 6,300 visits throughout 2025.

The seasonal pattern is worth noting: traffic surged through mid-to-late 2024, likely driven by autumn garden preparation and Christmas gifting searches, but the equivalent autumn uplift failed to materialise in 2025. September 2025 SEO traffic reached only 5,982.21 — a steep drop compared to 11,595.71 in September 2024, representing a -48.4% year-on-year decline for that month alone. This suggests the segment is contending with more than seasonality; structural SERP changes and intensifying competition are likely contributing factors.

The traffic distribution underscores the dominance of smaller players: 681 stores fall under the 50k monthly SEO traffic threshold, just 2 sit in the 100k–250k band, and none exceed 250k. The segment is therefore characterised by a long tail of low-traffic stores, with very few achieving meaningful organic scale.

Domain Authority Under Sustained Decline

Average PageRank for the segment stands at 2.43 in the most recent period, representing a -12.4% year-on-year deterioration. The trajectory of domain authority over the tracked window is telling: PageRank reached a local high of 3.44 in October 2024, before dropping sharply to 2.82 in January 2025. A partial recovery through mid-2025 saw values climb back toward 3.32 by September 2025, but January 2026 saw another pronounced dip to 2.43 — the lowest point in the entire dataset.

This oscillating but ultimately declining authority profile suggests that many stores in this segment are struggling to build or maintain sustainable link equity. Without meaningful domain authority gains, competing for high-intent commercial keywords in a crowded Home and Garden vertical becomes increasingly difficult, particularly against larger retail aggregators and established publishers.

Backlink Volume Has Scaled, but Referring Domain Growth Has Plateaued

One area of apparent growth is raw backlink volume. Average backlinks per store climbed significantly from 243.50 in September 2024 to a peak of 20,063.69 in April 2025, before stabilising at around 12,400–12,970 across the latter half of 2025 and into January 2026 (12,405.09). This represents a substantial increase in link volume over the period.

However, referring domain counts tell a more nuanced story. After peaking at approximately 1,232.13 unique referring domains in April 2025, the figure fell back considerably to around 619.38 by January 2026. This divergence — where backlink counts remain elevated while referring domain numbers plateau or decline — points to a concentration of links from a narrower set of sources rather than broadening link diversity. From an SEO standpoint, link diversity typically carries more weight than volume alone, meaning the segment's backlink profile may be less robust than raw link counts imply. Stores seeking to improve PageRank recovery should prioritise earning links from a wider range of authoritative and topically relevant referring domains.

Paid Search Spend Collapses Year-on-Year

UK Home and Garden e-commerce stores entered 2026 with paid search spend at a fraction of prior-year levels. Average monthly paid search spend peaked at $780.33 in January 2025 before declining sharply through the year, falling to $169.77 by October 2025—a drop of -78.2% in just nine months. January 2026 recorded an average spend of $198.71, representing a -74.5% decline from the same month a year prior. The broader paid cost trend confirms this contraction, with paid cost growth sitting at -85.3% year-on-year. This is not a seasonal dip but a sustained structural pullback, with spend remaining compressed through Q4 2025 and into the new year rather than recovering during the peak retail season.

The mid-year months of 2025 saw spending stabilise in the $487–$601 range before the October cliff edge, when average spend dropped below $170. This October compression is particularly notable given that autumn typically marks the start of a high-investment period for retailers ahead of Black Friday and Christmas. In the Home and Garden segment, the data suggests stores either pulled budgets in response to poor returns or shifted investment away from paid search entirely.

Paid Search Traffic Mirrors Spend Decline

Traffic driven by paid search has followed an almost identical downward trajectory. Paid search traffic as a share of total traffic peaked at 7.5% in March 2024 but stood at just 1.0% in January 2026—the same level recorded in December 2025. In absolute terms, average paid search traffic fell from 413.37 visits per store in January 2025 to 130.05 in January 2026, consistent with the reported year-on-year paid traffic growth of -78.7%. For context, total site traffic in January 2026 averaged 12,443.50 visits, meaning paid search is contributing a negligible share of overall acquisition.

The divergence between the 2024 and 2025 traffic curves is stark. In September 2024, stores averaged 384.51 paid search visits against a much larger total traffic base of 21,548.96. By September 2025, paid search traffic had fallen to 254.67 visits despite a total traffic base of 13,012.31—a smaller audience being reached with even less paid investment. This compressed efficiency profile suggests diminishing reliance on paid channels as a growth lever.

Platform Adoption and Spend Trail Global Benchmarks

Adoption of paid media platforms among UK Home and Garden stores is low and declining. Google Ads was active for 22.2% of stores at some point this year, but only 18.3% were active last month, indicating a contraction in active advertisers over the short term. Meta Ads adoption is negligible, with just 0.4% of stores running campaigns this year and 0.2% active last month.

Spend levels across all paid channels sit well below global averages. Google Ads spend for the segment averaged $185.01, compared to a global average of $242.95—placing UK Home and Garden stores at 76.2% of the global benchmark. Meta Ads spend averaged $2,256.96 versus a global average of $2,866.26 (78.7% of global). Most significantly, total paid media spend averaged $632.18 per store, against a global average of $928.11—just 68.1% of the global figure. This consistent underinvestment across platforms, combined with sharply declining year-on-year activity, points to a segment that is either deprioritising paid media or facing structural budget constraints that are limiting competitive reach.

Instagram Remains the Dominant Organic Social Channel, But Momentum Is Softening

Instagram continues to account for the largest share of social-referred traffic among UK Home and Garden e-commerce stores, delivering an average of 445.97 visits per store in January 2026. However, the channel's contribution as a share of total traffic has held relatively flat at 6.6% for two consecutive months (December 2025 and January 2026), down from a peak of 7.5% in November 2025. Looking further back, Instagram traffic has declined significantly from its April 2025 high of 889.69 average visits per store — a contraction of roughly -49.9% over ten months — tracking alongside a broader reduction in total site traffic across the segment.

Posting frequency has also pulled back. Stores averaged 2.2 posts per week on Instagram in January 2026, down from 2.61 posts per week in December 2025, a month-on-month decline of -0.4 posts per week. With an average engagement rate of just 0.015%, the segment faces a challenging content environment, suggesting that posting volume alone is insufficient to drive meaningful audience interaction. The follower base across the segment skews heavily toward smaller accounts: 257 stores sit under 10k followers, while only 27 stores have surpassed 250k — indicating that most brands in this space are still building organic reach rather than harvesting it at scale.

TikTok Gains Ground as a Meaningful Traffic Source

TikTok has demonstrated the most dynamic growth trajectory of any social channel in this segment. From a negligible base of zero average visits in January 2025, TikTok-referred traffic climbed to 152.27 average visits per store in January 2026, representing 1.6% of total traffic. While that share remains modest relative to Instagram, the directional trend is notably positive. The channel's peak contribution came in June 2025 at 219.58 average visits (1.9% of total traffic), and it has since stabilised in a 1.4%–1.7% range over the subsequent seven months.

Upload frequency has accelerated sharply. Stores posted an average of 2.9 TikTok videos per week in January 2026, up from 1.81 per week in December 2025 — a month-on-month increase of +1.09 uploads per week. This signals a growing willingness within the segment to invest in short-form video content, likely in response to TikTok's proven ability to drive discovery traffic in visually led categories such as home décor and garden products.

Broader Organic Social Traffic Hits Its Highest Share on Record

Beyond platform-specific channels, aggregate organic social traffic reached its strongest position yet in January 2026, with stores generating an average of 366.6 visits from organic social sources — representing 5.7% of total traffic. This is the highest organic social share recorded across the entire tracked period and marks a notable uplift from 4.3% in December 2025. For context, organic social traffic was effectively negligible as recently as early 2025, with near-zero contributions recorded in January through March of that year.

The acceleration from April 2025 onwards — when organic social jumped to 1.1% and then surged to 3.4% in May — points to a structural shift in how stores in this segment are approaching content-led acquisition. The continued rise through autumn and into January 2026 suggests that investment in organic social is beginning to compound, with stores that established channel presence earlier in 2025 now reaping incrementally larger traffic returns.

Lighthouse Performance Scores Signal Technical Debt

UK Home and Garden e-commerce stores recorded an average Lighthouse Performance score of 52.8/100 in January 2026, a decline of -1.0% from the previous month's score of 52.6/100. This places the segment in technically underperforming territory, where page load speeds, rendering efficiency, and core web vitals are likely dragging down user experience and conversion potential. For a category where product imagery is central to the shopping experience — think large hero shots of garden furniture or room-styled interiors — unoptimised assets and render-blocking resources are common culprits behind scores at this level.

Accessibility scores held relatively stable month-on-month, moving marginally from 85.8/100 to 85.9/100, a 0% change rounding to flat performance. While this is a more encouraging baseline, there remains meaningful headroom before reaching best-in-class thresholds, particularly given evolving UK and EU digital accessibility regulations that are increasingly relevant for online retailers.

SEO Scores Remain a Relative Strength

Despite the performance struggles, the segment demonstrates considerably stronger SEO fundamentals. The average Lighthouse SEO score for January 2026 stands at 92.0/100, holding nearly flat against the prior month's 92.0/100 (technically a marginal slip from 0.9202 to 0.9178, representing 0% rounded change). This suggests that UK Home and Garden stores are generally well-structured for search engine crawling and indexing — meta tags, structured data, and canonical configurations appear broadly healthy across the segment.

This SEO resilience is strategically significant. Home and Garden is a high-intent, high-consideration category, where organic search remains a critical acquisition channel. Maintaining strong SEO scores while performance scores languish does, however, create a tension: well-ranked pages that load slowly risk elevated bounce rates, partially undermining the organic traffic advantage.

Catalogue Size and Pricing Trends Reflect Seasonal Dynamics

The SKU distribution across UK Home and Garden stores skews heavily toward smaller catalogues. The largest cohort — 405 stores — carries between 0 and 250 SKUs, while 153 stores sit in the 251–500 bracket. Only 32 stores operate catalogues exceeding 2,500 products, suggesting the segment is dominated by specialists and boutique retailers rather than broad-assortment players. Larger catalogues can compound performance score challenges, as more product pages mean more opportunities for technical inconsistency.

Average product pricing across the segment has tracked a clear seasonal curve over the past six months. Pricing peaked at £214.12 in August 2025 before declining to a trough of £183.56 in October 2025 — a drop of -14.3% over two months, likely reflecting end-of-season discounting on outdoor and garden lines. Prices recovered through November and December, reaching £212.81 in December 2025 before softening again to £203.72 in January 2026. The most recent data point — February 2026 at £218.94 — marks the highest average price recorded across the entire observed period, a +7.5% recovery from the January figure. This uptick may reflect early-season premium product launches or a shift in catalogue mix toward higher-value indoor furnishings as spring ranges begin entering inventory.