marshallretailgroup.com website review

About 521 KiB of JavaScript is downloaded but never used on this page. Google estimates it would make the page about 4.5 s faster on a phone.

8 images could be 796 KiB smaller with modern formats (WebP or AVIF) and sizes that fit a phone screen. Google estimates it would make the page about 3.0 s faster on a phone.

13 files block the first paint until they finish downloading. Deferring or inlining them could save about 1.9 s.

Your mobile performance score is 37 (desktop: 81). Under 50 is Google's “poor” band: many phone visitors leave before the page is usable.

The page has 7,793 HTML elements. Above 1,500, rendering and every interaction get slower on phones.

6 third-party services load with your homepage (Google CDN, Accessibe Accessibility Overlay and Cookiebot and others), adding 1.2 MB and 1.2 s of main-thread time.

Google CDN costs a phone 705 ms of main-thread work and 736 KiB of downloads while your page loads. Loading it after the page is usable, or only on the pages that need it, takes that off the critical path.

About 81 KiB of CSS is downloaded but never applied on this page. Google estimates it would make the page about 450 ms faster on a phone.

3 files are served with short cache lifetimes, so returning visitors download them again (34 KiB).

A phone's processor spends 3.4 s on main-thread work while loading, 1.7 s of it running JavaScript. Above 2 s, taps and scrolls feel sluggish.

14 long tasks block the main thread while loading, the longest for 295 ms. During a long task the page ignores taps.

Desktop scores 81 but mobile only 37. A gap that wide usually means heavy scripts and images that hit phones hardest.

Critical files load one after another instead of in parallel (3 chains). Preconnecting to key origins and preloading the hero image shortens the chain.

Scripts make the browser recalculate the layout repeatedly while the page loads, which wastes processor time on phones.

3 KiB could be saved by minifying JavaScript.

2 KiB could be saved by minifying CSS.

Real Chrome users on phones do not pass Google's Core Web Vitals on this page (28-day field data from the Chrome UX Report (opens in a new tab)). Google uses this in ranking.

The first text or image appears after 9.1 s on a phone. Good is under 1.8 s.

Your largest element takes 17.6 s to render on a phone. Google's threshold for “good” is 2.5 s. The largest element is the element shown below.

The page becomes fully interactive after 17.7 s. Good is under 3.8 s.

Visually, the page fills in at 9.1 s (Speed Index). Good is under 3.4 s.

Scripts block taps and scrolling for 841 ms in total while the page loads. Good is under 200 ms.

Real visitors wait 1.0 s for your server to start answering (75th percentile). Good is under 800 ms.

3 images have no width and height attributes, so the layout jumps as each one loads.

Over the last 25 four-week periods to 2026-10-24, real Chrome visitors' tap response (inp) went from 81 ms to 77 ms at the 75th percentile (Chrome UX Report (opens in a new tab) history).

Over the last 25 four-week periods to 2026-10-24, real Chrome visitors' largest content (lcp) went from 1.6 s to 1.6 s at the 75th percentile (Chrome UX Report (opens in a new tab) history).

Your homepage downloads 3.4 MB in 55 requests on a phone: images 1.4 MB (15), scripts 1.2 MB (17) and other files 351 KiB (3). Under 2 MB keeps phones on slow connections fast.

5 images (704 KiB) are JPEG, PNG or GIF. The same pictures as WebP or AVIF are usually much smaller at the same quality, and every current browser shows them.

4 images further down the page (557 KiB) download before anyone scrolls to them. Adding loading="lazy" lets the first screen load first.

By the Sustainable Web Design model, a visit to your homepage emits about 0.96 g of CO₂e: 115.1 kg a year at 10,000 visits a month. It scales with page weight, so every byte cut lowers it.

3 buttons have no accessible name, so screen readers announce just “button”.

Certain ARIA roles must contain particular children: 1 element on the page fails this check, rated critical by axe-core.

1 dropdown has no label.

8 text elements don't have enough contrast against the background to read easily, especially outdoors on a phone.

ARIA input fields must have an accessible name: 1 element on the page fails this check, rated serious by axe-core.

1 link inside paragraphs relies on colour alone to stand out.

Links must have discernible text: 1 element on the page fails this check, rated serious by axe-core.

Some list items are not inside a list.

All page content should be contained by landmarks: 1,452 elements on the page fail this check, rated moderate by axe-core.

5 form fields have no label, so screen readers announce an empty box and autofill guesses.

Headings skip levels (h1 → h4), which makes the page harder to scan with a screen reader.

Your title is only 8 characters: “Homepage”. Between 30 and 65 characters leaves room to say what you do and for whom.

There are 8 <h1> headlines (“WHSmith North America”, “2” and “334”). One clear main headline is easier for people and search engines.

Your meta description is 219 characters; Google truncates after about 160, so the end of your pitch is cut.

The homepage links to 34 pages on marshallretailgroup.com and 366 external pages.

https://www.whsmithna.com/brand-category/news-gift, https://www.whsmithna.com/brand-category/tech, https://www.whsmithna.com/brand-category/specialty, https://www.whsmithna.com/brand-category/licensed and https://www.whsmithna.com/brand-category/fashion are marked noindex but linked from your homepage. If they are meant to be found, remove the noindex.

https://www.whsmithna.com/concepts, https://www.whsmithna.com/brand-category/news-gift, https://www.whsmithna.com/brand-category/tech, https://www.whsmithna.com/brand-category/specialty, https://www.whsmithna.com/brand-category/licensed and https://www.whsmithna.com/brand-category/fashion and 4 others have no meta description, so Google writes the search snippet from whatever text it finds.

Your homepage links to 10 pages by a URL that isn't their canonical one, for example https://www.whsmithna.com/contact, whose canonical is https://www.whsmithna.com/store/elc-den-t-b. Linking straight to the canonical URL saves crawlers a detour and keeps ranking signals on one address.

https://www.whsmithna.com/locations has no <h1> headline, so visitors and search engines get no clear main topic.

https://www.whsmithna.com/concepts and https://www.whsmithna.com/partners have under 150 words in the HTML. Thin pages rarely rank; if the text loads with JavaScript, crawlers that don't run it see even less.

https://www.whsmithna.com/locations took over 3 s to send its HTML from our server.

We fetched 15 pages linked from your homepage (of 21 found) and read each the way a search engine does.

1 image is served at too low a resolution for sharp phone screens.

On a phone, there is no call to action on the first screen: visitors have to scroll to find out what to do next.

No testimonials, customer logos, ratings or customer counts on the homepage: nothing tells a new visitor that others already trust you.

Your homepage shows a street address but no LocalBusiness JSON-LD, so Google and AI assistants have to guess your address, hours and phone from the page text.

No guarantee or risk reducer (money-back, free trial, no credit card) is mentioned, which is often what tips a hesitant visitor.

The homepage carries about 8,997 words of visible text.

Loading the homepage contacts 8 hosts run by other companies (fonts, scripts, analytics, ads), each of which sees the visitor's IP address.