Retail chains website statistics

Every number on this sheet was measured, not surveyed: one HTTPS request per homepage across 18 large US retail chains sites (35 sampled; 17 excluded, of which 11 refused the request outright), no JavaScript executed.

Rev D — 2026-08-03n = 18dataset (JSON)

Read this before the numbers

sampling limit

Read this as a floor, not a sector

31% of the sampled chains refused a declared automated request — HTTP 403s, the highest refusal rate of any vertical measured here and higher than the DTC sample. A further 6 chains are excluded for reasons that are not refusals — connection failures and rate limiting, recorded as such rather than counted as policy; the revision log carries the correction that separated them. What survives is 18 homepages: the chains willing to answer a non-browser client. That is a real and interesting population, but it is not the retail sector, and no figure on this page should be read as one. The refusal rate itself is the most reliable number here.

The numbers

measured 2026-08-03

232 msmedian server response

Half of the 18 measured homepages return their first byte within this time; the slowest takes 9472 ms.

820 KBmedian HTML delivered

Size of the delivered document before any subresource loads. 18 of 18 serve it compressed.

72%ship a known tracker

13 of 18 homepages reference a recognised analytics or advertising tracker in the delivered HTML.

11median third-party domains

The median homepage references this many distinct external domains before any interaction.

44%surface a consent mechanism

Only 8 of 18 expose a detectable consent platform — yet 16 set a cookie before any choice is possible.

78%expose a main landmark

14 of 18 provide a main landmark for assistive technology; 8 ship no first-level heading at all.

Explore every row

live explorer

Median trackers1

≥1 tracker13/18

Any consent signal8/18

01eBay45/1003rd-party19trackers0pre-cookies19
02Best Buy50/1003rd-party11trackers2pre-cookies9
03Nike50/1003rd-party17trackers2pre-cookies5
04Williams-Sonoma51/1003rd-party19trackers1pre-cookies10
05Target58/1003rd-party6trackers1pre-cookies13
06Barnes & Noble62/1003rd-party14trackers2pre-cookies1
07Walmart64/1003rd-party5trackers4pre-cookies2
08Dollar General69/1003rd-party23trackers0pre-cookies0
09Lowe's70/1003rd-party0trackers0pre-cookies12
10Wayfair72/1003rd-party6trackers1pre-cookies3
11Michaels75/1003rd-party13trackers1pre-cookies2
12IKEA76/1003rd-party11trackers1pre-cookies3
13Ulta Beauty78/1003rd-party11trackers1pre-cookies2
14Bath & Body Works78/1003rd-party12trackers1pre-cookies1
15Foot Locker81/1003rd-party7trackers0pre-cookies0
16Old Navy81/1003rd-party4trackers1pre-cookies5
17Gap84/1003rd-party2trackers1pre-cookies5
18Nordstrom88/1003rd-party0trackers0pre-cookies1

18 of 35 large US retail chains homepages · measured 2026-08-03 · score = transparent composite of the raw signals in each row

The statistics above are recomputable from this table — switch dimensions to re-rank the sector.

Against the other sectors

identical method

Share of homepages referencing a recognised analytics or advertising tracker in the delivered document.

B2B SaaSn = 3385%

AI platformsn = 3382%

Developer toolsn = 3376%

Fintechn = 2767%

Healthcaren = 2952%

DTC ecommercen = 2492%

Retail chainsn = 1872%

Healthcare holds the best posture here — 52% against 85% and 82% and 76% and 67% and 92% and 72%.

Lower is better · all sectors measured with the same script and method · 2026-08-03

Every measured sector, one metric at a time. The ordering changes with the metric — which is the point.

Every exclusion, named

17 of 35

Costco — connection error (Command failed: curl -sS -L --max-time 25 --max-redirs 5 --compressed -A Digitar)Kroger — connection error (Command failed: curl -sS -L --max-time 25 --max-redirs 5 --compressed -A Digitar)Home Depot — HTTP 403 (automated request blocked)Macy's — HTTP 403 (automated request blocked)Kohl's — HTTP 403 (automated request blocked)Chewy — HTTP 429 (automated request blocked)Etsy — HTTP 403 (automated request blocked)Sephora — HTTP 403 (automated request blocked)REI — HTTP 403 (automated request blocked)Dick's Sporting Goods — HTTP 403 (automated request blocked)Petco — HTTP 403 (automated request blocked)Staples — connection error (Command failed: curl -sS -L --max-time 25 --max-redirs 5 --compressed -A Digitar)Office Depot — connection error (Command failed: curl -sS -L --max-time 25 --max-redirs 5 --compressed -A Digitar)AutoZone — HTTP 403 (automated request blocked)Tractor Supply — connection error (Command failed: curl -sS -L --max-time 25 --max-redirs 5 --compressed -A Digitar)Five Below — HTTP 403 (automated request blocked)Crate & Barrel — HTTP 403 (automated request blocked)

Cite this

CC BY 4.0

Free to reuse with attribution. Quote the revision, not the date you read it — Rev D is a specific set of measurements, and re-measurement publishes a new one rather than editing this.

Reference

Digitarise. “Retail chains website statistics.” Rev D, measured 2026-08-03. n = 18 of 35 sampled. https://www.digitarise.com/data/retail-website-statistics

BibTeX

@dataset{digitarise_retail_chains_2026,
  title     = {Retail chains Website Observatory},
  author    = {{Digitarise}},
  year      = {2026},
  version   = {Rev D},
  note      = {n = 18 of 35 sampled; measured 2026-08-03; one HTTPS GET per homepage, no JavaScript executed},
  url       = {https://www.digitarise.com/data/retail-website-observatory.json},
  license   = {CC BY 4.0}
}

The raw measurements are a downloadable JSON file — every row, every excluded site, and the reason each was excluded.

One request per homepage. No JavaScript executed, nothing simulated — only what any client can observe.

Read the methodology