cases > Case Frasers Group

Case Frasers Group

Websites: flannels.com, sportsdirect.com, houseoffraser.co.uk

Focus: INP improvements, UX Score, Core Web Vitals, conversion uplift, platform readiness

How Frasers Group improved INP performance across three major E-Commerce brands

Executive summary

Frasers Group partnered with us to improve interaction speed and responsiveness across three of its flagship e-commerce brands in response to evolving user expectations and Google's Core Web Vitals. Over a focused three-month initiative, the programme delivered measurable gains in user experience, interaction speed, and session quality. By reducing friction on key pages and aligning teams around shared performance KPIs, Frasers Group saw a clear uplift in user engagement and platform readiness, all without major replatforming or tooling changes.

Performance that drives results

Frasers Group made a focused move to improve site responsiveness by addressing INP as a key performance factor. This helped lay a stronger technical foundation and improved the user experience across their platforms.

The work went beyond fixing issues. It marked a shift towards making performance a shared responsibility across product, marketing and engineering teams.

The project covered three major retail brands and was informed by behavioural data from over 3 million sessions during a three-month rollout.

Why INP became a business priority

Google’s introduction of Interaction to Next Paint (INP) as a Core Web Vital turned interaction latency into a key business concern. Across flannels.com, sportsdirect.com, and houseoffraser.co.uk, real-user data revealed performance challenges on high-impact pages such as the homepage, product listings, and landing pages.

Mobile users in particular experienced delays when tapping filters, product cards, and calls to action. These delays, even when brief, can interrupt a user's momentum. When a page does not respond instantly, it breaks the natural flow of interaction. This creates friction, introduces doubt, and increases the likelihood that users will hesitate, abandon their journey, or lose trust in the experience. Responsive interactions are essential to keeping users engaged, confident, and moving toward conversion.

Frasers Group recognised that addressing these issues was not just a technical goal. It was a strategic step toward protecting customer experience and business performance. Achieving this required shared visibility, cross-team alignment, and a clear link between performance and user outcomes.

A strategy built for scale and speed

Real-User monitoring to prioritise what matters most
We used Dynatrace, Honeycomb, and SpeedCurve to identify live interaction issues, then validated improvements using production data. This ensured every change delivered measurable impact at scale.

A Unified UX Score to align teams
We introduced a composite UX Score tailored to each brand. It combined Core Web Vitals and supporting metrics, weighted by business relevance. This single, shareable score helped guide decisions and focus team efforts.

From diagnosis to delivery
We translated INP bottlenecks into development-ready tickets that addressed long tasks, inefficient scripts, and rendering delays. Each recommendation included context on user impact to help teams prioritise effectively.

Making performance a habit, not a one-off
Performance KPIs were embedded into sprints, release planning, and review cycles. Weekly web performance sessions gave product, engineering, and analytics teams a dedicated space to align, track progress, and share insights.

What made the difference
The project succeeded because of three key drivers:

  • Effective use of real-user diagnostics and behavioural analytics

  • Clear cross-functional ownership across digital teams

  • A performance model rooted in business impact, not just technical compliance

What we achieved together

UX Score improvements across all brands
 Flannels.com improved from 80 to 99
House of Fraser improved from 79 to 98
SportsDirect.com improved from 75 to 96

Demonstrating business impact with ContentSquare

To understand how performance improvements translated into user outcomes, Frasers Group conducted behavioural analysis using ContentSquare across all three brands. The focus was on product listing pages, where interaction delays had previously impacted responsiveness.

The analysis compared session quality before and after optimising INP, focusing on sessions with fast interaction speeds over a three-month period.

  • Flannels.com
    The number of fast responsive sessions more than doubled, representing a relative uplift of over 100 percent. This significantly expanded the portion of users receiving a smooth, responsive experience.

  • SportsDirect.com
    Fast responsive sessions increased substantially, with a relative uplift of over 80 percent. This allowed many more users to benefit from faster journeys and reduced friction.

  • House of Fraser
    Building on a strong baseline, fast responsive sessions increased with a relative uplift of over 40 percent, reinforcing consistency and responsiveness across key journeys.

ContentSquare’s analysis showed that users in the fast interaction group displayed stronger engagement patterns and clearer signs of progression through the customer journey. These shifts confirmed that improving INP materially enhanced the quality of experience.

Lessons learned

Performance is no longer just a backend concern. It is a strategic enabler for customer satisfaction, marketing efficiency, and revenue growth.

By aligning teams around shared KPIs and using real-world behavioural insights to guide priorities, Frasers Group demonstrated that performance can be a scalable and repeatable success factor, not just a one-time win.

Setting the standard for digital experience

This initiative marked a significant step in Frasers Group’s digital performance maturity. By improving responsiveness where it matters most and embedding performance into team culture, the group established a foundation for faster, more resilient digital experiences.

These gains are now embedded into how Frasers Group measures, builds, and scales experience. With shared KPIs, real-time monitoring, and proven behavioural impact, the group is positioned to extend these practices across brands and platforms with confidence.